


Friends Are The Family You Choose For Yourself

by lilsmartass



Series: First Impressions and Second Chances [6]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Avengers as a team, Avengers as family, F/M, Gen, Hurt Clint, Loki flavoured mind fuckery, M/M, More angst, None of the Avengers have social skills, no, please read the A/N, possible triggers, really - Freeform, they all suck at asking for help too, this gets dark in places
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1939218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilsmartass/pseuds/lilsmartass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Natasha

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

**Friends Are The Family You Choose For Yourself**   


**  
**

The tower seems silent when Natasha returns, sweat stained and tired, dropping her bag to the floor and allowing herself to rest a palm, and then her forehead, against the smooth tile while she waits for the elevator. The silence means nothing, just that there’s no one on this floor or the next. She isn’t worried though, Clint will be in her rooms, he always is on the day she’s scheduled to come home. He’s always waiting for her.

Her floor too is silent.

Natasha drops her bag to the floor, instincts peaking anew. She draws her weapon and quickly searches all the rooms. There is no one there; a relief since she was half expecting Clint’s body. Since she’s alone, she allows herself a snort of self-deprecating amusement. This is the safest place she’s ever lived, including SHIELD barracks and safe houses she’d set up herself. Clint must have simply…forgotten.

She will deny until her dying day that the feeling in her chest at that thought is hurt. But Phil hasn’t said Clint is on his own assignment, and he is meticulous to let them know if that is the case since the Beijing Incident.

Natasha takes her time, unpacking her field gear and taking the long, hot shower her body has been craving for the past week. The water beats down against her muscles, relaxing her and helping her centre her thoughts. It is totally understandable that Clint isn’t here; they’d never before lived with people placing demands outside of training on their time. Yes, she was due back today, but it is hardly as if she is never delayed waiting for evac. Clint couldn’t be expected to wait around their room, ignoring the others for days on end on the off chance of seeing her.

When her hair is clean, she dresses in a wash worn shirt, and sweats, leaving her hair damp down her back. Telling herself that this place is home and safe, she remains barefoot, but she can’t quite prevent the reflexive flick of her wrist that shoots her hand out to grab a knife that she holsters in the small of her back.

The others are all sprawled across the large cream sofas. Natasha takes a moment to pause in the doorway, examining them. Tony is in the centre of the room, wearing a bright, shit-eating grin as he demonstrates his prowess on the dance mat hooked up to one of the game consoles. Clint, looking happier and more relaxed than she has seen him in weeks, is heckling and throwing hard candies from the bowl in his lap, each one not quite hitting Tony, but whizzing past his ear in a way reminiscent of overly large beetles. Steve is sprawled across the entirety of the largest sofa laughing and Bruce has been obliged to sit on the ground, shoulders resting level with Steve’s knees and is trying to ignore them all, a sheaf of papers clutched in one hand and brow furrowed over his glasses. Someone has left Thor in charge of Tony’s multi remote and, apparently, taken him to a disco since the last time Natasha was here, because he’s flicking the lights on and off in a way that makes her dizzy.

It is, of course, Clint who notices her first. She sees his shoulders tense slightly, the not quite turn and slide of his eyes as he checks over his shoulder, and her own shoulders tense to match as he doesn’t turn fully, doesn’t greet her, simply dismisses her as a non-threat and goes back to heckling Tony. For a second she stands, unsure of what to do next, eyes riveted to Clint’s muscular frame, certain he must be giving her a signal of some kind that she is too tired to parse.

Before she can make a decision, Bruce turns, dropping his papers to the ground and hand groping for a teacup at his side. She tenses further as his eyes land on her, ready for battle, mind flicking through possibilities of mind control and copies and other reasons for Clint to keep quiet.

Bruce doesn’t notice, his eyes lighten and his face creases into a smile. “Natasha! It’s good to see you back.”

Everyone turns, Thor leaving the light off as his finger depresses the button and he drops the remote, leaping from the sofa to wrap Natasha in his strong arms. “Lady Natasha, I am glad to see you unharmed.”

It is only by the slenderest of margins that she keeps herself from planting the knife in Thor’s bicep.

Tony is next, stepping off the rubber mat and ignoring the woeful sound the console makes at this sudden loss of participation. His eyes flick over her, an unsubtle, but not appreciative, merely assessing, gaze. She forces herself to stand passively under it. His smile is bright, and she can see that the expression is real from his eyes, before he catches her expression and turns away. “It’s good to see you. Mission go well?”

“Classified,” she says coolly.

Tony shrugs easily.

“It’s good to have you back,” Steve says, his deep voice warm.

She ignores him, eyes tracking over the crowd. Clint is still seated on the sofa, he’s barely looking at them, popping a candy from the bowl into his mouth. The silence stretches on unpleasantly. Slowly, the others turn to Clint, and, conscious of the scrutiny he looks back, eyebrow arched.

“Hi, Nat.”

She doesn’t tense further, but she feels smaller in Thor’s shadow. Her face is completely expressionless as she picks her way through the others towards him. “Hey.” She drops down on the sofa next to him, masking the questioning touch to his arm by leaning forward and snagging a hand full of candy. He doesn’t glance at her, doesn’t answer in any way she can perceive.

“Hey, Tony,” Clint declares as the bowl is shoved into her arms, “My turn on the mat.”

Tony blinks for a second, then seemingly decides to disregard the tension in the room. “Sure.”

He sprawls on Steve’s sofa, lolling unselfconsciously over the blond. Natasha grits her teeth and turns her attention to Clint. She’s almost painfully aware of Thor’s eyes on her, interest in the games and camaraderie totally forgotten.


	2. Bruce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

“Avengers assemble.”

Steve’s voice crackles over the PA system in the tower, and Bruce rolls out of bed, a combination of tiredness, irritation at the brutal awakening and adrenaline making the Hulk surge up within him. He takes a deep breath, keeping control of himself. _For now, just_ _for now_ , he promises the Other Guy and goes quickly to pull on the super stretchable pants Tony had made for him.

The city, when they arrive, is in chaos. There are civilians _everywhere_ being herded into small – Bruce cringes as he thinks 'bite-sized' – huddles. He grabs Steve’s arm as the Quinjet drops down, circling lower. “Captain, the Other Guy is only going to make this worse.” He feels awful, even as he knows he has to say it. Thor wasn’t at the tower last night as he was in London with Doctor Foster. Bruce doesn’t know if Steve’s texted him, but it’ll be at least an hour before he can be here. It means the team will be down _two_ heavy hitters. Doombots are always a pain, and the loss of Thor’s liberal use of electricity is already a blow.

It doesn’t change the fact that the Other Guy will only cause massive collateral damage.

Eyes on the ground below, Steve nods. “Agreed. Stay in the Quinjet, keep tabs on the situation. We’re going to be bringing in wounded, and this looks like Doom’s work. Tony might want someone to talk at when it comes to disabling whatever device he’s using this time.”

Bruce gives him a faint smile. “Good luck.”

Steve nods his appreciation, but Bruce is already turning away from him, hand falling to the elbow of the Iron Man suit as he draws Tony down to hiss at him.

“All right,” Steve says a few moments later. “Clint, Natasha, you’re on the ground; get the civilians out of here. I don’t care where, just get them away from the action. Tony, find whatever you need to disable the Doombots. I’m going to take point, give you guys a distraction.”

“Steve…” Tony starts, unease obvious even through the voice filter.

“I’ll be fine,” he reassures instantly. “And you’ll have them disabled in a few minutes.”

Tony curses loudly and turns to Bruce who finds it disconcerting to suddenly be stared at by the featureless helmet. “You’ve got it covered,” Bruce agrees. “Be careful,” he adds softly as Tony pulls away from him to all but fling himself out of the Quinjet, scanners working with a near silent whirr.

Clint lands the Quinjet, and with a quick glance at Bruce, follows Natasha and Steve out, leaving Bruce to secure it. The scientist takes another deep breath, settling the rippling, shifting sensation under his skin, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck to quiet the uneasy itch there.

“Doctor Banner?”

He turns, unable to quell the reflexive snarl.

Agent Coulson is in the door of the ‘Jet. He doesn’t flinch, but he stills and waits. It takes a moment for Bruce to calm his frantic heart rate. “Agent. What can I do you for you?” he manages after a moment. If his voice is raspier than normal, Coulson doesn’t call him on it.

“I just wondered if you wanted a coffee. I’m sending one of the juniors on a supply run and I,” he offers Bruce a small, gentle smile, “I know how it is. Being the one waiting.”

Bruce softens a little. If there’s anyone who understands how he feels at this moment, it’s Agent Coulson. “I- Er,” he uses a finger to push his glasses up his nose, “I don’t think coffee’s a good idea.” His voice is rueful. “I’m kind of…on edge.”

“Understandable.”

A sudden crash from outside shatters the calm and the Quinjet reverberates with the noise. Bruce starts, fingers clenching around his glasses until the plastic creaks. He all but trips over himself as he heads for the door. Coulson steps out of his way, probably realising that blocking him at this point is going to lead to nothing but being trampled by several tons of Hulk.

At this distance he can’t see much. The hovering Doombots are focussed on one area and seem to be being held at bay by a thrown disc of red, white and blue. There’re enough signs of movement that he knows Natasha and Clint are still doing their job. He can’t see Tony at all.

When he turns again, Coulson is holding out an ear piece. “You’re wired into the system. You’re used to their fighting styles and you’re not…I am trusting you not to clog up the comms. So if you have anything to add…”

“Thanks,” Bruce says, hoarsely grateful, fingers seizing it.

Instantly, he can hear everything. The sounds of the battle filling his ear. It’s familiar, but in the way of old movies, sense impressions from the Other Guy bleeding through without any real context. The sound of the fight makes him feel even more unsettled; not on the _verge_ of changing, but acutely aware of the Other Guy pressing and shifting, uneasy under his too-small skin. The Other Guy doesn’t like them being out there without him. For once, Bruce is in total agreement. He taps at the earpiece.

The Other Guy will be much harder to control with it in. But taking it out is unthinkable. He can’t _not know_. “Thanks,” he says again, “I think I’ll wait at the ‘Jet though. I’d rather be alone if there’s…an Incident.”

_“Bruce? That you, Science bro? Wired up and ready to roll?”_

_“Cut the chatter, Iron Man. Concentrate on finding the control device.”_

_“Now that’s just hurtful, Captain. I mean- Oh_ God, _Steve? Steve? Are you okay? Captain, respond.”_

Bruce is digging the fingers of one hand into the skin of the other, bruises blossoming beneath them. He doesn’t dare talk, barely dares to breathe. He knows his eyes are green, can feel it; but when he looks, Coulson isn’t paying any attention to him. His hand is cupped around the piece in his own ear, face furrowed with concern.

_“’M okay. I’m okay. Just- just got the wind knocked out of me is all.”_

_“Steve, you’re getting pulverised down there.”_

_“Then find a way to turn them off, Tony. There’s always too many of them. If you come down here, we’ll just both be getting hammered. It’s not worth it.”_

_“I- Fine. Fine. Just don’t, y’know, die or anything. Bruce, any ideas?”_

“Doom’s stuff usually gives a distinct signature. Can you have JARVIS triangulate?”

Tony makes a staticy frustrated noise. _“There’s some kind of dampening field. I can’t scan anything. I can barely keep tabs on the others unless I’m looking right at them.”_

_“We’re without aerial cover here, Stark?”_

_“Yeah, well, we can’t all be_ The Amazing Hawkeye _. And unless you want to be taking out these ‘Bots for the rest of the week, I have another job to do.”_

_“Oh, for fuck’s sake, come and get me. You can manage down here right, Nat?”_

Bruce has gotten to know Natasha well enough over the past few months that he picks up on the minute hesitation in her voice. Even if he hadn’t, the Other Guy, tinging his skin a pale lime, is close enough to the surface that he couldn’t possibly miss the sharp scent of Coulson’s sudden tension.

_“I’ll be fine. I’ve got it covered.”_

_“You’re sure?”_ Steve asks. Bruce taps his fingers against his forearm, a growl that he’s helpless to restrain pushing out of him at the sound of Steve’s voice, ragged and desperate. They’ve been in combat for not quite ten minutes, and Steve is already exhausted.

_“It’s all under control, Cap. C’mon Stark. Where’s my ride?”_

_“All right. All right. Five seconds, Birdbrain. I need to find the battery packs for these things.”_

There are more sounds of fighting, and, in the distance, Bruce can see another wave of Doombots. “I need to be out there,” Bruce says, voice tight.

 _We could certainly use the help,”_ Natasha says lightly. There’s the crunching sound of a scuffle, then the sound of her alternately cajoling, encouraging and outright bullying the civilians that she’s trying to herd to safety.

“Get those people clear and I’m there,” Bruce snaps.

No one calls him on it. They all know what it’s like to sit on the sidelines.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Tony who breaks the silence. _“Doom’s here.”_

“What?” Coulson demands.

Bruce takes a moment to be glad that he’s the one with a Hulk problem because he’s pretty sure that Coulson would have just lost it.

_“Doom. He’s on site. This dampening…It’s not automated.”_

_“That’s…we need a new strategy.”_

What they need is a strategic retreat, but with more than thirty Doombots converging on a populated, un-evacuated area, that’s not an option. It could be worse; Loki’s been causing havoc for the past couple of weeks, nothing that’s likely to endanger the world, but enough to keep the Avengers endlessly on edge. Still, Doom’s no picnic. He’s completely insane and perfectly capable of destroying half-a-dozen city blocks.

“Widow, we need you to clear the area,” Coulson says, tapping a message on his phone as he speaks. “Hawkeye, tell me where they’re coming from and relay directions to Iron Man. Captain…we still need that distraction. You up to it?”

Steve is nearly gasping for breath. Bruce has never heard him do that before, though to be fair, at this point in battle he’s usually big and green. “I’m fine, sir.”

_“You’re not fine. You might be enhanced, but even you can’t fight an entire army solo, you moron.”_

_“Your OTT concern for your boyfriend is adorable, Stark. But we need you to pay attention to what’s happening here, okay?”_

_“Calm down. We all know you’re just jealous.”_

_“Jealous of what exactly? I don’t like dick, Stark. I don’t care what you and Big-and-Blond get up to.”_

_“Will you two_ stop _chatting_ on the comms _,”_ Steve wheezes.

Before Tony can retort, Coulson cuts in. “He’s right. This is important.”

_“Yeah, I know. Barton, what have you got for me?”_

_“All right, they all seem to be coming from-”_

Clint’s voice is cut off by a new voice, one Bruce doesn’t know. _“Oh God! I’ve never seen that much blood, I- Somebody help us.”_

 _“Natasha?_ Widow _?”_ Steve barks frantically.

There’s no response.

“Widow, sound off,” Coulson demands, totally professional. “Barton,” he continues when there’s no response, “Where is she? Is she down?”

 _“I-”_ again there’s the briefest of hesitations. _“I…yes. Yes, she’s down. A stray Bot. She took it out, no further danger, but she’s…sir, she needs a retrieval team.”_

“On it.”

_“How could you let this happen? Aren’t you two weirdly psychic and connected at the hip? Why didn’t you just put an arrow in it before it got near her?”_

_“Shut your mouth, Stark.”_ Clint sounds truly dangerous.

The needle of irritation at Clint’s tone is just one prick in the midst of a thousand but it makes the urge to transform surge just a little higher.

 _“The civilians are clear,”_ Tony announces, oblivious to the tension, and apparently unbothered by Clint’s tone. _“Come on, Bruce. Cap needs a hand.”_

He barely even manages to warn Coulson to move back. It’s such a relief to let go.


	3. SHIELD HQ 2004: Phil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

**SHIELD HQ 2004**

Phil had never really considered becoming a father, and this was mostly why. He was not being paid to deal with the ridiculous sibling rivalry Clint had started with their latest acquisition – the acquisition that _he_ had so desperately wanted. Phil would have just shot her. Clint was acting like a kid that had begged for a puppy and was now jealous that said puppy needed so much attention. If it were anyone but Clint, Phil would honestly just have left them to it. He’d have sold tickets to the infamous Black Widow kicking him round and round the training room.

This situation was different though. Coulson didn’t play favourites, but, if he did, Clint would be it. Clint absolutely _was_ his favourite. That was the reason he had allowed the man to recruit the Black Widow in the first place, instead of executing the kill order he’d been given. He trusted Clint’s instincts very nearly as much as he trusted his own. He hadn’t been proven wrong yet, even with this latest debacle. The Black Widow had the potential to be a huge asset. Also, he _liked_ her; Coulson never just liked people.

Clint would still take priority if he didn’t know that Clint liked her too.

Seriously, if he had wanted to deal with this middle school bullshit, he’d have followed in his mother’s footsteps and become a teacher.

They had spent most of the morning’s briefing bickering in half a dozen languages about the best way to cook some obscure Russian dish. Romanov’s main argument was that she was Russian and therefore must know best, while Clint’s counter argument was that Natasha could burn water, so she was probably wrong. It had taken nearly three hours to get through what should have been an easy thirty minutes to detail their covers for their latest operation.

Phil rubbed just above the bridge of his nose and muffled a sigh. Since they were both _his_ assets, he couldn’t even hide from the problem in his office. Romanov wasn’t afraid of paperwork – his usual threat if someone unwelcome stopped in – the way most juniors were, and Clint moaned but did it willingly enough, making such a mess of it that it was honestly more trouble for Phil to fix than to do it himself. He still wasn’t sure if this was a clever ploy on Clint’s part to get out of doing paperwork, or if he was really so incompetent at simple filing. The point was however, that if he went back to his office, he’d spend the rest of the afternoon listening as Clint complained about Romanov, except for those times when _she_ dropped in to make veiled references to SHIELD’s harassment policy because she thought she was too dignified to complain about _him_.

He’d put a stop to the whole thing if he didn’t think she liked Clint too, though Phil wasn’t one hundred percent sure whether she liked him or just realised exactly how much she owed him. He knew Clint would be on her like a fly on shit if she gave him the smallest opening. He also knew that it would stop the incessant whining. He knew Romanov used sex as her method of ensuring that she had control, or at least the attention, of the men around her. Since she hadn’t tried _that_ with Clint…

It meant that he needed to try and keep the best new recruit SHIELD had found in years.

None of this irritated introspection was helping him find a way to both avoid the idiocy in which his assets were trying to embroil him, while simultaneously complete the work he needed to finish so that he might actually be able to take the one day off he had a week for the first time that month.

Any hope of that was driven instantly from his mind when Clint fucking back-flipped out of the vent just above him.

Coulson was torn between swearing, stabbing him in the eye with a pen, or just agreeing to do what Clint should have done in the first place and shoot the Black Widow, if that would buy him a week of peace.

He blinked. “Problem?”

“You weren’t in your office.” Clint tried, and failed, not to pout.

Coulson surrendered to the impulse to rub at the side of his mouth with his thumb. “Clint, I have things to do other than listen to the latest installment of the You-and-Romanov drama. I’m not actually your babysitter.”

Clint just grinned at him. “You know you love it. You get to gossip about what an evil bitch she is at the water cooler without having to actually interact with her and deal with her various psychoses.”

“No one cares,” Coulson said flatly. He saw Clint’s grin widen, and felt something actually snap inside him. His expression didn’t change except to, perhaps, harden very slightly. If Clint said _anything_ he would not be responsible for the consequences. He quickly talked over him. “She’s a Soviet defector with the code name Black Widow. _No one_ is surprised that she’s not all sweetness and light and doesn’t spend her downtime crocheting little hats for premature new-borns, except, apparently, you. Furthermore, since the novelty of having a Soviet defector on staff wore off _weeks_ ago, no one would even be the least bit interested if she did. You, on the other hand, are supposed to be a professional and are instead acting like an overly emotional schoolboy with a hard on for the prom queen in what is, quite frankly Agent Barton, an unacceptable manner for one co-worker to treat another.”

Instantly, he felt guilty. Phil didn’t lose his temper very often, and there was a reason for that. He had a tendency to be more than a little cuttingly hurtful with people who really didn’t deserve it. Clint was possibly the least equipped to take personal criticism of anyone he had _ever_ met, and that took into account the fact that criticising Hill on any sort of personal or professional level required taking your life in your hands with every word.

Clint’s wide smile was still in place, a hard-learned defense mechanism to hide weakness, and his eyes were, to be honest, more bewildered than hurt. Clint had been responsible for some fairly spectacular fuck ups and some even more impressive acts of insubordination, and Coulson had never lost it like that at him. “Right. Well…I’ll just be…I’ll…” Clint’s voice trailed off as he stammered himself into silence. Coulson watched him take a deep breath. “You’re right. You’re busy. I’ve got that mission report to fill in anyway.”

“Clint…”

“It’s fine, Agent Coulson. You’re right. I’m Agent Romanov’s SO. It’s unprofessional to be continually complaining about her.”

“Clint-”

Clint hitched a very nearly convincing smile up onto his face. “I’ll see you at the briefing, sir.”

And he turned, spinning on his heel and headed down the corridor, whistling.

“I thought you two were friends?”

The very last person Phil wanted to have this conversation with was Agent Romanov. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate conversation for a corridor, Agent.” he said. One finger passed briefly over the knot of his tie, a nervous gesture that he was trying to eliminate, before his hand dropped to his side. He wondered how she had managed to creep up behind him.

“But the way you spoke to Hawkeye was acceptable?”

“What is it that you actually want, agent?”

She wanted to complain about Clint, because somehow, this was the life he chose for himself.

*

“Clint. I know you’re there.” There was no movement from the vent he had stuck his head into, and Phil felt a really uneasy sensation that maybe Clint _wasn’t_ in the vent above his office. It was where he always went. There was a long and meandering explanation about Phil always watching his back and liking to stay close and sharing a room with his brother. Maybe he had hurt Clint so badly that he was now talking to an empty hole in the ceiling. “Clint?”

There was a heavy, echoing sigh. “What’s up, Agent Coulson?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bitten your head off earlier. I was just-”

“It’s fine.”

Phil knew it wasn’t fine, but he had no idea what else to do. He knew exactly how Clint saw him – as the father he never had (and he hated that Clint really thought he was a good candidate for that role) - but he did try to live up to it. Sometimes he even thought he wasn’t doing too horribly. Of course, other days were like this. The problem was that he knew, better than most, just how terrible Clint’s upbringing had been, how badly Clint had been hurt by _everyone_ who had ever had authority over him. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t be another.

“You want to grab some lunch?”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

It was playing dirty. “You want to know what Romanov said about you this afternoon?”

“I- I don’t care.”

The slight hesitation was all the clue Phil needed. “Oh. All right then. I’ll catch you around.”

He let himself back down into his office.

 _Three, two, one,_ he counted to himself.

“When did you talk to Romanov anyway?” demanded Clint’s echoing voice.

“Earlier. Don’t worry about it.”

Clint snorted. “I don’t- I’m not worried.”

Phil made a noise to show he had heard and settled at his desk, beginning his paperwork. He got half way through a C-47 before there was a small noise and Clint dropped in front of him. “I know you’re manipulating me. I don’t appreciate it.”

Phil didn’t smile, but he let his face relax. “But you want to know what she said?”

Clint’s eyes widened in only slightly affected surprise. “She really spoke to you? About me?”

It broke Phil’s heart to know that Clint didn’t even trust him not to lie about something which Phil _knew_ was important to him. However, he was startled to notice that Clint's surprise was not entirely masking some insecurity. “She’s very nearly as obsessed with you as you are with her. Please _try_ to remember to fill out the appropriate relationship forms when this situation resolves itself in the obvious manner.”

Clint laughed. It didn’t sound right. “Not if you paid me. She probably eats her partners when she’s done with them.”

Phil was not going to argue with him about this. He was not going to reduce himself to passing messages between Romanov and Clint like he was the twelve-year-old best friend. “Barton-” he said, frustrated beyond measure as he tried to do damage control on a wound that, if left to fester between them, would definitely ruin their field relationship.

Unexpectedly, Clint smiled. He looked like his normal irreverent self for the first time since the outburst in the corridor. “ _Barton_?” he repeated incredulously. “You _never_ call me 'Barton'.”

It was true. He never did. Phil called him either Agent Barton or Hawkeye when he was speaking as his handler and Clint when he was his friend, never implying that he could be both. The penny dropped with a near audible sound and just…there was sympathy there, but also irritation. For God’s sake. “I don’t…” he couldn’t say it. Refused to. He was not going to actually utter the phrase: _I don’t like her better than you_. He was not going to say _I don’t think she’s a better agent_ either. “I don’t have a nickname for you, and we’ve worked together so long…” It was lame and he knew it, but he also knew Barton needed something to reassure him that he was still important to SHIELD and to Phil, and that he hadn’t been replaced. Maybe this would do.

Barton smiled but didn’t call Phil on it, for which he was enormously grateful. “So, The Black Widow likes me?”


	4. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.
> 
> Also, because a lot of people have asked, yes, I have a story and a series by the same name, I like the phrase. They are completely unconnected.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

Steve wakes at two in the morning, frantically grabbing for his phone, heart contracting in his chest like an icy hand is squeezing it. The phone isn’t ringing, there are no messages on it. Steve rolls onto his back, taking a deep breath and staring up at the ceiling. It’s been a week since the last time he was woken by a SHIELD automated message about the latest Loki attack, but before that there were weeks of regular attacks and alerts. They haven’t made any headway in catching Loki and, knowing he’s out there, Steve just can’t relax.

“What is it, baby?” Tony mutters sleepily, half waking as his body registers the change in his companion.

“Nothing,” Steve whispers, settling himself more comfortably around Tony, turning his back to the bedside table with the phone because staring at it isn’t going to have any bearing on whether or not Loki is causing mayhem. “Go back to sleep.” Normally that wouldn’t work, but he only talked Tony into bed about an hour ago and didn’t manage at all last night.

The genius sinks back into his arms, relaxing back into whatever dream he’s enjoying. The thought makes cold sweat prick across Steve's back, and he has to employ all of his self-control to prevent himself from pulling his embrace painfully tight, or from grinding his teeth audibly. Steve has always hated losing. And the number of times they’ve fought Loki and not made any appreciable difference to the villain's plans sure feels like losing. Particularly because at the moment it feels a whole lot like Loki’s toying with them. His latest half dozen stunts haven’t even been particularly dangerous; they haven’t even seemed to have a point beyond humiliating and/or inconveniencing the Avengers. And that annoys him on another level because he hates bullies even more than losing.

Tony snuffles and sinks deeper down into his arms, hands resting lightly on Steve’s wrist where he has an arm wrapped around him, and Steve feels something even stronger than hatred wash over him. It’s cold, unadulterated _fear_. He’s terrified of what Loki could, and might, do to the others. Loki’s last little adventure with them had come within a hair of destroying Clint, and it had almost killed Tony. It actually would have if Thor’s mom hadn’t been able to give them the safety net of at waking if they died in the dreamscape. Steve has never had so much to lose. He has never had so much that he’s been afraid of losing.

And, quite frankly, the impression that Loki is toying with them is just exacerbating that fear. He’s ashamed to admit it, even to himself, but it _terrifies_ him to think of the power Loki is capable of mustering against them. That he seems content to just attack them by animating manikins from dress stores – an event which had had both Tony and Clint gleefully exchanging quips about a 'Doctor Who' (Steve’s just stopped asking) – or turning streets into ice cream and leaving them sliding helplessly around like Bambi on ice…Honestly, Steve finds it worrying. What’s the point? Tony jokes about Loki only wanting funny facebook pictures, but there’s got to be more to it than that. He can’t get the image of Tony’s grey face, chest empty as he collapsed into the snow while Loki smirked down at him, out of his head.

Steve gently disentangles himself from Tony and rolls over again, huffing once more at the ceiling. He’s always suffered from insomnia, and it has only gotten worse now that he only needs a few hours of sleep a night. But the stress of Loki’s latest series of, for want of a better word, 'pranks' over the past few weeks have ruined his sleep completely. His muscles flex and he wishes he could get up and go to the gym, try to run and punch this tension out. He’s longing to try out Tony’s latest attempt at an unbreakable bag. But after having bullied and bribed and outright emotionally blackmailed Tony into getting some sleep tonight, Tony would have every right to be angry and hurt if he wakes up and Steve’s left him alone.

He sighs again, then freezes as Tony snuffles again but doesn’t wake. Nothing seems to have gone right since Loki turned up again. There’s definitely _something_ wrong between Clint and Natasha, and Thor has been forced to spend more and more time on Asgard doing his best to play diplomat between the forces of Earth who want to see Loki thrown into the deepest, darkest hole they can find, and the Asgardian royalty who, unsurprisingly, don’t want one of their princes brutalised. Tony is getting wilder and more manic. He’s all but impossible to pry out of his lab these days, always creating more and better tech, anything to have even a possibility of bringing Loki down next time, betraying his worry despite his jokes. Steve isn’t sleeping, and the tension they’re all generating means that Bruce is a near-permanent shade of olive.

There must be a way he can fix this. He’s supposed to be their leader. Morale is his job, but he can think of nothing which will let him relax other than catching Loki and, (he acknowledges guiltily, silently sending apologies to Thor), getting Asgard to allow Earth to keep him where they can see he’s actually being punished, or at least effectively contained.

Steve picks up his phone again, but, of course, there are no missed messages. He’s fairly sure this lack of any activity is Loki’s latest prank. The god has been inside his head, he knows how much this would prey on Steve. If Steve had been in that wasteland all alone, or even just with Clint, he’d have snapped under the pressure. Even the idea of being trapped alone in the snow makes him shudder.

His fidgeting and tension have finally woken Tony. He feels him come awake and rolls onto his side as his lover does the same. “What’s wrong?” Tony’s voice is rough with sleep and he looks softer and more innocent than he would ever permit himself to be seen normally.

“Nothing,” Steve answers hoarsely. “It’s nothing…it’s fine.”

Tony’s starting to wake up properly now. He raises his favourite sardonic eyebrow. “I thought we were supposed to be doing this whole _communicating_ thing now. And honestly, I find it both distasteful and uncomfortable. If I find it’s only me that has to share, I’m gonna be pissed, Steve.”

“I’m not…It’s…You can’t help.”

Tony shifts closer, pushing his way back into Steve’s personal space. Steve closes his arms around him by habit. “Tell me anyway.”

“This whole thing with Loki has me rattled,” Steve admits quietly, not sure if he can even be heard with how hard he’s pushing his face into Tony’s dark hair.

There are a couple of minutes of quiet. “Me too.” Tony says, even more quietly.

“Do you think…do you think he’s got an actual plan? Or is he just…”

Tony’s breath rushes across his chest as the billionaire sighs. “I think this is all about Thor and he doesn’t give a damn about us. I think that’s why Thor’s made such an effort lately to be away. He doesn’t want to admit it because his whole thing with Loki is strange, and frankly a little bit incestuous, but he wants to pull Loki as far away from us as possible.”

Steve hadn’t thought of it like that, but he trusts Tony’s ability with pattern recognition. “I don’t like that. I don’t like the idea of Thor fighting without backup.”

“Of all the people you could worry about, Thor would not top my list. He’ll be fine. And he has backup. Do you never listen to any of his stories about the 'Warriors Three'?”

Steve scrunches his face further into Tony’s hair like a child with a security blanket. He lets Tony hold him even closer and the genius is either practising his rarely used patience or is half asleep. The only times Tony is quiet. It doesn’t stop Steve admitting quietly into the dark, “And Loki always messes Clint up.”

“Clint's definitely off,” Tony agrees, apparently awake enough to respond at least. “But Natasha will look after him.”

“You don’t think…that he and Natasha don’t…don’t click like they used to? And Clint’s being-”

“They’re fine,” Tony cuts him off repressively, in a tone that has too many layers of pain. “He’s fine.”

Steve pulls back a little to look at him, even as he tightens his hold. “I’m sure they are. I just think he-”

“He’s just,” Tony’s teeth sink into his lip and Steve unwraps one hand from his waist to tap against the corner of Tony’s mouth to make him stop. He hates to watch him hurt himself. “He’s not dealing well with all of this shit. Loki _always_ hits him the hardest. He’ll be fine as soon as we catch the asshole.”

“But-”

“Besides,” Tony just keeps talking over him, and Steve can’t help the indulgent smile. “Besides, I’m sure it would help if they weren’t always out on separate missions nowadays.”

“Hmmmm. I guess SHIELD must really need them.”

“So do we! I get that Natasha’s the awesomest super spy ever to spy and Clint can shoot a flea off a rat through the eye of a needle or whatever, but SHIELD must have _some_ other assassins and spies and marksmen on staff.”

“They need the best. You know that. And of course our people are the best.”

“Well, obviously. But still.”

Steve allows Tony to comfort him, feeling a little of the tension bleed out of his shoulders. Tony’s right, and Clint and Natasha’s relationship has always been…different. Their recent apathy towards one another is doubtless just another manifestation of that. And if _Steve_ feels this wound up about Loki, who knows what Clint feels? They lapse back into silence. Steve still can’t sleep, but with Tony wrapped around him like a vine, his breathing synchronised to Tony’s, he feels more relaxed than he has in days.

Tony yawns, his beard rasping on Steve’s skin as his jaw moves.

“You need to get some sleep,” Steve says.

“’M fine.”

“I had to pick you up to get you into this bed, and now I’ve woken you after only a couple of hours.”

“And neither of those things were in the fun way.”

“ _Tony_!” Steve admonishes.

Tony laughs, and this time the rasp of his beard is more deliberate, calculated to make Steve shudder. “Come on, it’ll relax you.”

“On one condition.”

“Yes, I’ll ride reverse cowgirl.”

“ _Tony_!” Steve gasps, half laughing, and half completely horrified, a sound he knows Tony is aiming for, but he can’t help himself. “I’m serious.”

Tony sighs. “Fine, what?” Then he ruins the impression that he’s listening by sliding down Steve’s body and latching his mouth onto one of Steve’s nipples, sucking hard enough to wrench an embarrassing squeak from him.

“You get at least eight hours of sleep afterwards.”

Tony gives a moan that might be agreement, but, judging by the way that parts of Steve spring to attention quicker than he ever did for Colonel Philips, it’s probably just distraction. He hisses, rallies every ounce of determination he has, and pushes Tony back.

“I’m serious, Tony. Eight hours, do you understand?”

“Sir, yes sir,” Tony drawls lazily.

“I’m not kidding, Tony.” He’s not really angry with Tony, more fondly exasperated, but he is at least built for sleep deprivation. Tony is not.

Tony laughs, rolling him over onto his back and kisses him hard. “I promise.”

In that case, Steve sees no reason to deny himself what he wants. He lets Tony help him relax and sleeps deeply for the first time in weeks.


	5. Phil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

Phil has far too much pride to _run_ down the corridors of SHIELD HQ, but in the privacy of his own head he will admit that this is the closest he’s ever been outside of an emergency situation. He pauses in the empty corridor just long enough to compose himself and then _strides_ up to Hill’s office. He doesn’t knock, and he is more professional than to slam the door open. Instead, he enters as calmly as if this were his own office and gives Hill, and the junior agents that she’s briefing, a bland smile before leaning against the door with feigned nonchalance to wait.

He can tell Hill’s unsettled by the way she doesn’t look at him, not even in natural curiosity; her steady briefing doesn’t falter. He wonders if the juniors are still too green to pick up on the tension clogging the room and makes a note of the ones he’s always considered promising, deciding to question them later. Being able to read the mood of a situation with almost no information is a skill that will save their lives at least once in this line of work. He turns the unmarked card folder in his hands idly, watching a few of the brighter members of the group flinch. Coulson simply doesn’t fidget.

Hill doesn’t speed up the briefing; if anything, she slows down. Phil knows that if the juniors _really_ needed their positions clarified three times, they’re not ready for field work. She can’t string it out forever though, and eventually the juniors stand, clutching their briefing packets to their chests like shields. They skirt around Coulson as though he might bite.

When the room is empty they regard each other. Coulson admires the casualness and ease in Hill’s stance, belied by the fact that she keeps the desk between them. He breaks the silence, having no intention of spending the next week in a staring competition. “You’ll never guess what I just heard from Agent Morse,” he says, voice deceptively bland.

Hill curls her lip in a disdainful sneer. “That the new Quartermaster is _such_ a dreamboat? Or that 'coral' is this season’s must-have colour?”

Coulson doesn’t rise to the bait. “She seems to think that you’ve just signed out all of the SHIELD footage of the Avengers’ training and battles to compile a report on the dangers of meta human vigilantes for a US Army General.” Coulson makes a point of checking the papers in his hands, “Ah…General Ross. The same General Ross that we currently have under surveillance for his ties to the anti-Mutant fundamentalist, William Stryker.”

Hill’s lips twitch. “It’s a preliminary report, Coulson, no need to get your panties in a twist. A report Nick _asked_ me to compile.”

Coulson feels a muscle in his jaw jump as he helplessly tenses. “I told you my people were not to be used as pawns in your little games, Maria. You know as well as I do that Nick intends this report to be a glowing accolade for the Avengers Initiative in order to get the Army off our backs.”

“If that were the case, Nick would have asked _you_ to compile the report.”

He takes a slow, steadying breath. “Neither Nick nor I were allowed to construct the report. We’ve been deemed too close to the team by the powers that be. That’s why it was entrusted to you.”

“Then you will just have to trust me.”

Coulson keeps his face expressionless with the ease of long practice. “There is no one I trust more, Maria. You know that. But I also know how you feel about this topic and being trusted to report on it when Nick and I were not…” he shrugs. “An impressive feather in your cap. Particularly if you say what the brass wants to hear.”

Hill hisses between her teeth. “If I turn my back on you, are you going to stab me with a teaspoon?”

“I don’t have one on me.”

She gives the unattractive sneer again, but bends, rummaging in one of the drawers under her desk. When she’s standing, she’s holding a slim card folder, the perfect match for his. “Here’s my report. Take a look.”

He eyes her narrowly, but crosses the room in a couple of paces to the desk and begins flicking through the incident analysis reports. He’d recognise Hill’s style anywhere and there is no mistaking the fact that, although each analysis takes pains to stress the mistakes made and costs incurred, each one ends with a positive endorsement. Hill repeatedly concludes that the pros outweigh the cons. He flicks through each one, but can find nothing amiss.

“Does it meet with your approval, Agent Coulson?” Hill spits.

“…Yes,” he’s forced to admit. “My apologies, Maria.”

“You need to stop getting your information from the water cooler gossip. I always thought that you were trained not to act until you had _actual_ Intel.”

He bristles at the insult, but there’s no doubt he deserves it. “I’m sorry,” he says again and pushes the papers back across her desk.

“I can’t believe that you think I’m so short-sighted as to ignore all the good that the Avengers do.”

“I _know_ what you think of them.”

“That does not change the fact that I also recognise all the good they do. Just because I’m not blinded by the shine on Captain America’s shield, doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate them.”

“Yes,” Coulson acknowledges softly, refusing to blush. He might be one of the best in the business, but they all make mistakes sometimes, even him. “I know you’d never do anything to hurt Nick’s position.”

*

Later, Phil is to be found in his usual place: in his office, behind his desk and the stacks of paperwork generated by the Avengers and the three teams he’s currently co-ordinating. He’s not getting through as much as usual, still turning over the events of the morning in his head. It’s just not like him to make a mistake like that. It’s not just humiliation keeping the events from fading, either; it’s genuine concern. He’s seen the results of paranoia; good agents seeing enemies in every corner. He knows just how many people it’s taken out of the field. Is that what’s happening to him?

Frankly, he’s relieved to hear the knock at the door. It’s a perfect excuse to allow himself to be distracted. “Come.”

Jasper Sitwell puts his head carefully around the door. “Phil? I’ve got the reconnaissance photos you wanted. And we need to go through the files and choose a new handler for Beta team. Wilkins has just been evac-ed with a broken ankle, but the mission hasn’t been compromised. He just needs to be replaced.”

Phil nods and shifts one of the stacks on his desk onto the floor. “Excellent. Come in.”

Jasper enters the office fully, putting the papers he’s holding and two paper cups from the Starbucks across the street into the newly cleared area before pulling the second chair out of the corner and sinking into it. He’s looking at Phil expectantly, but Phil can’t help reaching for the coffee first. He hides his face in the steam and takes a deep slurp. Jasper’s one of a very small number of people allowed to buy him coffee, or from whom he’ll accept food already opened. Right now, he’s extremely glad that is the case.

When he can feel the caffeine and sugar buzzing through his system, he lowers the half-empty cup and picks up the papers on the stack Jasper has given him. Jasper raises an eyebrow at him, and then exchanges Phil’s half-filled cup for his own, still-untouched one. “You look like you need it more.”

Phil gives him a smile, but doesn’t comment, saying instead, “What am I looking at?”

“It’s a truck stop out on Loop 303. It seems to be a favourite of our guys for exchanging money, drugs, weapons…You name it, it seems to happen here.”

Phil flicks through the pages. “We can’t make any real changes to the layout. Any change will tip them off. They’ve been avoiding the law for years. They’re not amateurs.”

“That’s our thinking, yes. Still, we’ve managed to get Agent Lewis into the diner itself as a waitress. By the way, she wants to know if she’s allowed to keep the tips she’s making, because apparently, 'It’s quite a lot of money, especially if she bends over to wipe the tables.'" He makes air quotes with his fingers. "Additionally, if we speak to the local officials, we can probably get scaffolding on these nearby telephone poles for maintenance. If it’s been there for a while, it won’t ring any alarm bells when we use it as a sniper’s nest during the next trade.”

Phil nods. “Do we know when that will be?”

“No. We haven’t managed to infiltrate them, only their regular buyers. We’ll hear the next time something enters the market though.”

“I want a truck transporting gravel, sand, anything like that, on standby. When they have the meet, we'll have it break down, dumping all of its cargo right in front of the exit to the parking lot and completely across the road. That’ll mean any escape attempt will have to be on foot. And it’ll put law enforcement on the scene. Make sure all of our people keep their identification on them, we don’t want them arrested after the inevitable shooting.”

Jasper picks up a pen from Phil's desk and makes a couple of notes. “No problem. And a replacement handler?”

Phil sighs. “What happened to Agent Wilkins?”

“According to his report, he was in the van monitoring communications from the various undercover personnel, stood up to get a cup of coffee, and tripped over a wire. Broken ankle. He’s insisting that he’s fine to return to the field, but in my opinion a handler that can’t move quickly if the team is identified is nothing but a liability.”

Phil shakes his head. Wilkins is far too green to be handling an op of this magnitude, but SHIELD has been short-staffed ever since the Chitauri invasion, so they’re spread thin. “Put Wilkins with the analysts. He knows his people and he knows their marks. He can provide information they won’t have considered. Where’s Woo?”

“With Alpha team. Burma.”

Phil taps a finger on his desk a few times. “Put Agent Burke in the field. He’s been asking for months for a mission like this. Tell him he’ll be reporting directly to me.”

Jasper makes a face. “He’s a field agent, not a handler.”

Phil shakes his head, “He considers himself an action hero, but his real talent is strategy. Make him Beta team’s new handler.”

“He’s too reckless and he has no leadership experience outside of combat. You might as well make _Barton_ their handler,” Jasper argues.

Phil’s eyes flick sharply to meet his. “You’ve always liked Barton.” He strives not to sound as defensive as he feels, wounded on Barton’s behalf.

“Sure, he’s a great drinking buddy, but you have to admit he’s reckless, and being an Avenger has only made him worse.”

Phil is aware that he’s sometimes less than perfectly objective when it comes to his assets, but being an Avenger has hardly made Barton _worse_. He’s too proud of his status on the team to risk SHIELD benching him again. And come to think of it, Sitwell’s only had contact with the Avengers a handful of times. “Where did you hear that?” he asks, a suspicion lurking in his mind.

Sitwell looks neither shocked nor deceived by the calm tone. “I’m not getting in between you and Hill, Phil. Not again. You two can fight over the Avengers without me.”

Phil favours him with a small but genuine smile. He respects the sentiment, and he’s grateful that Sitwell unbent enough to at least give him confirmation. Now, he just needs to figure out _what_ she’s doing, and more importantly… _how_. He’s seen her report and, while it could have been fake, he doubts it. Maria Hill simply has too much to do to play such games.

“Of course not,” he agrees blandly. “Hill and I don’t have our arguments on SHIELD premises. It’s unprofessional.”

Sitwell gives him a knowing look, but doesn’t object to what they both know is a lie. Phil turns his attention back to the papers in front of him, pushing this new information and this morning’s confrontation – possibly even more annoying now that he knows he didn’t make a mistake at all, instead Hill _schooled_ him – out of his mind. There will plenty of time to deal with her later, when he has time to properly analyze this latest scheme. For now, there are other people who need his help.


	6. Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

Her capture gives her plenty of time for introspection, and the more Natasha thinks about it, the more certain she becomes that this was the right choice, the only choice. She hadn’t been certain before, but she is now: there’s something wrong with Clint. Clint might, Natasha supposes, forget the day she was to return, or suddenly take her word for the fact that she is fine after combat and not insist on checking on her, but he knows too much about her past to ever dream of mocking her as unfeeling, or torment her for reading books aimed at pre-teen girls because she has no idea what love is supposed to be like. And he has never, ever, called her by her given name of Natalia.

The day before this mission – and she hurts, oh God, she hurts, but there was…is…no other way – was the first night since moving into the tower that she had slept on her own floor alone. Spending the nights together, unobserved, was a luxury she and Clint have never really had. There are no rules about physical relations in SHIELD, largely because there is no point. In a high stress and highly secretive job like theirs, tension and adrenaline run too high not to leave people an avenue for release, and maintaining an outside relationship when you can tell your partner little more than your name is impractical at best. Still, everyone seems to know when they spend the night in one another’s quarters, and that always makes her feel exposed. Phil has never commented, but she knows handlers who insist that their agents sleep alone to get a good night’s rest before missions. It has always made her skin crawl to have a weakness, someone she could have leveraged against her, exposed like that.

Even in the beginning, when she saw JARVIS as more of an intrusion than the necessary security that she has come to view him as, she still had more privacy than she’d ever had the luxury of having before. And Tony had never, by word or deed, implied that he knew what she had been doing the night before, and he’s the type to make insensitive and sarcastic remarks about the Black Widow's tendency for cuddling afterwards.

She still remembers Tony’s hesitant, _“Uh...I gave you each your own floor but if you two have some... arrangement I can move stuff around. There’s plenty of space.”_ She can’t deny that she’s considered it. Moving in with her boyfriend…something real, _normal_ people do. They co-own two apartments, but they’ve never been able to do _that_. It’s a too deeply ingrained instinct for both of them not to have somewhere they can go to ground alone if needed. Now, she’s glad of it. Glad of somewhere to hide.

This is _not_ Clint, not the way he would usually act. Natasha Romanov is untrusting and proud of that fact, but she _knows_ Clint. He is the stone on which everything else is based. First and foremost, she has to be believe that she is not wrong, not like this. The problem is that she doesn’t know how deep this runs. If this isn’t Clint, or if he isn’t in his right mind, there is no reason to trust that the others are, and, though she hasn’t spotted anything obvious, she just doesn’t know them as well. She cannot guarantee their behaviour the way she can Clint’s.

The knowledge that something is wrong, desperately so, gnaws at her. She doesn’t know where to start. She can find no trail of disappearance, no attack where something could have been changed. It must be Loki; it’s the only logical answer. They all know what Loki is capable of, and they all watch one another carefully in the aftermath of one of his attacks, a safety net on which they all depend. She seems to be the only one that sees this though, perhaps because Clint isn’t the only one that is different. Even Phil doesn’t seem to have noticed.

Her usual instincts in circumstances like this would be to run, to go to ground. But this whole 'being on team' thing changes everything. She can’t leave them.   She can’t leave Clint.

Natasha is not a strategist. She can do any undercover job she is given, be anyone her mark wants or expects her to be. She can uncover any lie or false truth, she can peel through layers of deception and manipulate almost anyone into doing almost anything. She can best everyone she has ever fought in unarmed combat. She holds SHIELD’s top rank for marksmanship, though both Phil and Clint outstrip her. In short, Natasha is brilliant. But she is not trained for something like this and she has no idea where to start. How does she even begin to discover where her target is and what they might have done to her people, with no information whatsoever? Phil or Steve, or even Thor with his millennia of tutoring in diplomacy and tactics, would be able to help her, but she can trust no one.

 _If_ the team are in their right minds, they can be relied on, she knows. But the ever present doubt that they might not be holds her tongue silent. And if SHIELD finds out Clint has been compromised _again,_ who knows what they’ll do?

She needs allies and she has none.

It had taken time to think of a plan, and she had retreated, alone, to her quarters to do so, letting the others think whatever they wanted. They probably think that she's menstruating (men are so weird about things like that). If it’ll buy her a few days she doesn’t care.

Eventually, she realises that they can’t all have been taken or changed. It’s part the wishful thinking of a little girl who doesn’t want to have her family ripped out from under her again, but it’s practical too. If anyone had control of five sixths of the Avengers, and SHIELD, they could take over the world in an instant. What she _needs_ is a foolproof method of testing each member of the team for authenticity. She doesn’t know the others like she does Clint, can’t spot the minute changes that alerted her about Clint. But what she does know is how they respond to one of their own in danger. What she needs is an enemy, obliging enough to take her hostage.

It’s a dreadful risk, but one that she has no other choice but to take.

*

It had taken time, and she felt every second keenly. She strove to act as normal as she could during that time, fighting to make sure that none of the potentially compromised ones know she suspects. It’s hard though, and it sets her teeth on edge to live in the lion’s den like this, with no reliable backup should she need it. It’s been a long time. It wounds her to her very core every time Clint levels a blow against her, but every blow just fuels her determination; for him – for them – she must get this right.

Eventually, there is AIM and Natasha has never been so glad to see them. AIM agents are powerful enough for it to seem realistic if they take her; yet if this doesn’t work she can (probably, hopefully) get herself out. Better, they are sadistic enough to wantto _take_ her and not just kill her.

Clint is on his own mission, and knowing that this isn’t _her_ Clint, her worry is muted. If anything, she’s relieved. She doesn’t have to feign disinterest when his too-familiar blue eyes look at her with nothing in them. She volunteers for Coulson’s reconnaissance mission, and, given her long-established inability to work with most of SHIELD, goes alone, with only Coulson’s voice in her ear. She would give anything to be able to discuss her suspicions with Coulson, to have a plan better than ' _see if the Avengers come for you_ ,’ because she doesn’t think that _this_ Clint would. But he knows Clint as well as she does, and he has said nothing.

Getting captured is much harder than it should be. She’s slightly disgusted that she’s letting a cell this incompetent believe that they have gotten the better of her. She doesn’t fight as they march her down a corridor. It’s only then that she thinks she may have made a mistake.

Normally, it wouldn’t have been a problem, because normally they would never have gotten this far. They do a very thorough job of searching her, successfully removing all of her weapons and lock picks. The cell is more secure than it has any right to be.

She clings to her original assessment that they cannot all have been replaced. Someone will come.

She repeats it like a mantra, and does what she was trained to do. She uses her own interrogations – and there are multiple, each more painful than the last – to extract every scrap of information she can. She is an Avenger, and an Agent of SHIELD, and she will not give up.

She has no idea how long they have had her, long enough that her mantra has started to ring hollow, but the drugs they are using to break down her resistance have made time slightly elastic, so what does she know? But one day, she blinks into unconsciousness and the welcome blackness and the next time she is fuzzily aware, it is to crisp sheets and the smell of disinfectant. There’s a pressure around her fingers, warm and familiar, but her fuzzy brain can’t place it.

“…got to be okay, Tash. This is all to keep you safe, to keep all of you safe. It’s all I have, the only thing I can think of. But it’s damn near killing me and I,” there’s a sound like a dry, hitching sob, “I can’t hurt you. That’s why I’m putting us through this. To save you all.”

 _'Clint_ ,'she thinks through the haze in her head, and squeezes the fingers wrapped around her own. She isn’t quite sure what he’s talking about but she hates listening to him sound so upset. She starts the laborious process of prising her eyes open.

There’s a low-voiced curse and another sob, then the fingers yank out of hers and there’s the feather light brush of lips on forehead.

By the time she’s fought off the drugs enough to get her eyes fully open, the room is empty. She looks around, confused, blearily noting the IV in her arm. She pulls that out straight away; whatever it’s putting into her has to be responsible for the fog in her head. Instantly an alarm sounds, and before she can get out of the bed and even attempt to ready herself for the fight to come, the door is opening and Steve’s unshaven face is peering worriedly inside.

“Natasha?” His eyes flick over her, then his cheeks pink and he locks onto her face.

“Rocking the paper hospital robe, Agent Romanov,” Tony says brightly, appearing beside Steve in the doorway.

“I…Where am I?” Natasha asks, still disorientated, and voice scratchy from disuse.

Steve crosses the room quickly, using one hand to push her back down onto the bed and the other to reach for the jug of water beside her. “You’re fine. You’re safe.”

She gropes for a memory. “AIM?”

Tony’s eyes narrow, even as his grin widens, expression becoming sharp enough to cut. “We took care of them. Bruce was _pissed_.”

It’s coming back to her now, in slow grainy pieces. Her plan. She hisses like a startled cat but allows Steve to replace her IV as she remembers the beating her body took. She must be on the good stuff or she’d feel much worse. “You came to get me,” she says evenly.

Tony looks offended as he crosses the room as well. “Of course we came! What do you take us for?”

She nods once. “And Clint?”

Tony looks apologetic. “He was on a mission of his own when you were taken. Which was six days ago, in case you’re interested. You were pretty beat up; you’ve been _here_ for two of those days. You’ve been in and out a couple of times, but this is the first time you’ve woken up properly.”  

Natasha couldn’t care less. She’s alive, that’s all that matters. “Clint?” She presses.

“Yeah, right. So he was away. And I guess whatever it was – I haven’t had a chance to snoop around yet – went south, because debriefing has been keeping him pretty busy. He’s dropped in once or twice since you’re at SHIELD HQ, but he hasn’t had the time to sit with you. We’ve all been trading off, making sure you didn’t wake up alone. It’s just your good fortune that you woke up to this amount of hotness.”

She forces herself into a sitting position, ignoring Steve and Tony’s disapproving looks. She feels a gaping sense of loss, sharper because of the dream she was having before she awoke. It’s hard to open herself up like this, it goes against everything she is. But her plan was to determine who is still themselves and it is clear that Steve and Tony are. It is worthless to have put her body through the punishment it has been subjected to and then not trust the outcome.

“We need to talk.”

“What you need to do is rest.”

She lashes out and grabs Tony’s wrist. She feels as weak as a kitten, but he doesn’t pull away and she chooses to believe it’s because he can’t. “No. Tony. Listen, this is important.”

Steve looks between the two of them and pats her with ineffectual comfort. “You do need to rest, Natasha…”

She switches her attention from Tony’s face to Steve’s. “Captain, please.”

There must be something in her voice because Steve settles on the end of the bed without another word. “What is it?”

“Clint. There’s something wrong with him.”

Steve sighs and shuffles and looks at the floor between his knees. “I know.”

Tony hisses, and pulls free of her grip. “No! There’s…He’s fine.”

“Tony-” Steve starts.

“You can’t,” Tony turns away, as though hiding his face will hide his wavering voice. “He’s fine. He has to be. He’s just-”

Blindly, never taking his eyes from Natasha, Steve reaches out and grabs Tony’s hand. It’s a gesture that speaks of easy affection and for a split second, Natasha is envious. She misses that ease more than she can say. “Natasha,” Steve’s voice is gentle, understanding.

“I’m not imagining things,” she snaps, defensively.

“I know.”

She’s grateful that Steve doesn’t mention her uncharacteristic lack of control.

“But we – Tony and Bruce and SHIELD – have put Clint through every test we can devise. He’s human and he’s…ours. He’s just-”

“He’s being a jerk,” Tony admits sulkily to the wall. He turns back to face her, “I just…I’ve never had…” he waves an arm, encompassing everything, “this before. I don’t want to watch it fall apart.”

Steve grips his fingers tighter.

Natasha shakes her head stubbornly. “I don’t care what the tests show. This isn’t Clint.”

Tony shrugs, his face a study in misery. “I don’t know what to tell you. I would give literally anything for this not to be the case, but…”

Natasha wipes her face of all emotion. “Right.”

Steve is looking at her sharply. “Natasha…all this. Was it…did you let AIM take you _on purpose_?”

She’s faintly aware of Tony’s horrified stare. “Yes,” she says expressionlessly. “I thought he’d been replaced. I didn’t know who else might have been compromised, I knew this would test your reactions.” She needs to give them something, she can’t afford to be benched, and she’s too tired to lie. It doesn’t change what she knows. This isn’t Clint. She’s certain. She _knows_. However they responded to her capture, Tony and Steve aren’t who they claim to be either. They can’t be because they are, all too obviously, lying to her.


	7. Maria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

Honestly, there are days when Maria thinks that it would be more expedient for Coulson to simply replace the sofa in his office with a bed and move in properly. Today is one of those days. He hasn’t been home in a week. She knows what it is to give your life to SHIELD, to have little or nothing outside of it, but if she was living in Stark’s luxury tower, she’d make a damn effort to make the most of it. The man defines capriciousness and it’s only a matter of time before he decides he doesn’t want a government agent breathing down his neck. Until then, she would take advantage of the cloud-soft bed, the massaging shower jets, and the free-flowing champagne and caviar.

Maria scorns the protectiveness that has always characterised Coulson; it's demeaning to his assets. SHIELD recruits only the best, and Coulson is high enough in the chain of command that he has his pick of assets. Anyone under him should be more than capable of defending themself. Maria is just surprised Widow hasn’t eviscerated him for treating her as though she needs a White Knight riding to her rescue. While emotions are weak spots known to be nothing but disadvantages to field agents, they can still be deadly even at the higher levels. Coulson’s protectiveness makes him pathetically easy to manipulate.

She’s not stupid. She knows Coulson has other demands on his time, other teams he has to oversee, other assets who need his expertise. With Hawkeye and Widow relegated to full time Avengers, he has more than ever, though nothing that can’t be reassigned to free his schedule should an Avenger-worthy threat emerge. But she also knows he hasn’t spoken, or even seen them, since the last time he was home. That was a week ago. He must miss them. She sees the lines of worry which crease his forehead when he skims over Avengers’ reports. She knows they are always at the back of his mind; she has worked with him too long not to be able to tell.

But, instead of going home, he has chosen to stay in the office with the many – _many_ – reports needed on Loki’s various attacks. She had offered to help him out, but Phil had refused her. He had done so with less than his customary politeness. Loki’s obsession with the Avengers, with Thor, and, perhaps more pressingly, with Barton, has become a matter of public speculation. She has even heard it said that it makes the innocents caught in Loki’s crossfire the responsibility of the Avengers. She couldn’t have asked for a better opening; with that in the wind, there was no way Coulson would let her so much as glance at the reports. Now that he believes he has thwarted her, in this attempt at least, she is free to carry out her actual plan.

Maria knows she is manipulative. They all are. Some, like the Widow, are born and bred to it.   Others are taught it later, as a survival skill or merely a tool in their arsenal. SHIELD is not made up of _nice_ people. You don’t get to Maria’s level by being afraid to step on toes. But you don’t get to Maria’s level without having a keen sense of justice and a willingness to see it done. She might scorn Coulson for many reasons, but she pities him in this. She’s seen many handlers – good handlers – burned by being too close to assets who weren’t worthy of the devotion offered. This, she knows is another case. Others have realised that some of these _so called_ Avengers need to be removed, or at least controlled by people who can make these decisions. Maria is just the person to see that it works.

Coulson and even, though she hates to think it, Nick, have been carried away with their romantic notion of heroes. She can acknowledge that the idea has merit. It is, at the least, an enticing possibility. The Avengers just aren’t the heroes they are searching for. They are unreliable, feckless killers. Neither Hawkeye nor Widow would have been her choices for recruitment. An ex-mercenary and a defector are hardly the people she would choose to uphold justice. And whilst Maria can’t deny that they are good – _excellent_ – at what they do, they are so efficient because they have no compunction about killing when told, about maiming and hurting and putting a bullet into good agents when that is what is needed to ensure that SHIELD’s secrets stay just that – secret.

Banner’s condition speaks for itself, and Thor isn’t even of this world. It would be idiotic to rely on promises of fidelity to a world he, by definition, has no kinship to. And Stark…Just the thought of him makes her blood boil. An arrogant little rich boy, whose brains and money and feckless charm has always gained him anything he desires. His past makes him the worst kind of hypocrite and it’s all too obvious that he’s only playing at being a hero. As soon as he had something more personally important, Iron Man was taken off the table – the business in New Mexico had proved that. She refuses to be reduced to relying on someone who prides himself on being unreliable.

Which just leaves the Captain. Even Maria can’t find a reason that he is unworthy of the title 'hero,' though it’s obvious he needs a better team. He also needs some firm handling as he’s obviously been taken in by the others. She could understand him being fooled by Hawkeye and Widow, since they have been trained to do just that; or even by Stark, whose training was no less rigorous for all that it was informal. But Banner? Thor? Captain America should be more discerning; she certainly wouldn’t expect him to befriend a monster with a death toll higher than Loki could ever have dreamed of.

It makes no difference though. With Coulson distracted, and unable to get in her way, it will be easy to show the Avengers for what they are. Even Captain Rogers will have to agree with her proposal for disbandment then.

*

The first stage is simple. SHIELD is like your average high school, it runs on gossip, and Maria? Well, she knows people. Oh, she can shoot and strategise, but her real skill set is interpersonal manipulation. She knows how to make anyone give up their deepest secrets. In a different life, she’d have been the world’s greatest con artist. It’s child’s play to choose the rumours that will be believed and will cause the biggest scandal, easier still to feed them to the agents most likely to spread them.

Once started, gossip takes on a life of its own, warping and mutating and becoming juicier with each retelling. This will blacken the reputation of the Avengers in a more widespread way than any report ever could, and it leaves her hands completely clean. Everyone knows that, out of all of SHIELD, Maria Hill doesn’t condone gossip. Even Romanov is more likely to spread a rumour than she.

Better still, the respect (that borderlines fear) that Barton, Coulson and Romanov command, means that all of SHIELD could be buzzing with gossip about them, but will keep it away from them. She has no doubt they know something is amiss, and she sees the unnatural jarring of conversational shifts carving deeper and deeper lines into Barton’s face every time he graces SHIELD with his presence. He thinks he’s subtle, but she can read him plain as day. He thinks they talk about him and his because he served as Loki’s right hand and nearly took the Helicarrier out of the sky. He thinks the speculating looks are because he offered an alien god their world on a silver platter. She feels no remorse for that. He _should_ feel guilt.

And when the gossip she’s planted slips smoothly into simple fact, Maria begins to plan confirmation. The confirmation doesn’t have to big and flashy and attention grabbing now; any small sign will be taken as more than was meant. It’s easier than it should be since Barton and Romanov are off base most of the time, living in Stark’s fancy tower, and Coulson is wrapped up with the several missions that she personally recommended him for.

She starts with Stark, the easiest soft target. She flatters his ego and allows a wheedling tone to creep into her voice when she tells him that SHIELD could _really_ use his expertise at the fancy, military-benefit dinner. She stops shy of outright begging for the favour, knowing instinctively that whilst Stark might enjoy it, it would make him suspicious. So she wheedles, and keeps her tone more than civil, and lets him see her clenched jaw so he knows how furious she is at having to ask for his favour.

He arrives on Captain Rogers’ arm, and disappears into the crowd almost instantly, the belle of the ball, schmoozing with everyone and missing no one. He’s so distracted by the sound of his own voice that he barely notices the junior agents, pressed into service as wait staff for extra security, who have been told that Stark is the Guest of Honour and to keep his glass full at all times. He loses track of his words during his speech, his excited gestures get more and more erratic and only Captain Rogers’ quick reflexes save the glasses of a senator who leans in too close to pay attention. The good Captain has to all but carry him out, and Fury is, well, furious, or so she hears later. She’s on a mission in Atlanta throughout, her main source of information being the instant webfeed, and as far from the source of the chaos as she could wish.

Stark is refused entry to the next Avengers’ press conference. And of course, without Stark, they need someone else as their front runner. Romanov would probably be Coulson’s first choice, but he’s distracted with the situation developing out in Arizona, so Maria (rightly) points out that the Widow has always been kept at the edges of the cameras for a reason. SHIELD still needs her skills so her cover cannot be blown, her face cannot be plastered everywhere.

The Hulk is obviously an inappropriate leading man, and the Captain, whilst the obvious second choice, is simply not good with the media. He stammers and gets flustered, repeating himself and twisting his words up. "And besides," Maria says, "He’s seventy years out of time. You and I know he doesn’t mean anything by it, but what if he says something racially insensitive because it’s the way he was brought up?"

Thor of course is a great deal like Stark; confident, flamboyant, and destined to lead. He has no problem speaking to people, nor in singing the praises of his team. He’s good looking enough to play well with the female demographic and a man’s man in way that plays well with the men. Maria doesn’t even get the entire request out before he’s agreeing.

She’s in Europe when she sees the headlines: “Avenger condones war,” “God of Thunder announces his pleasure that the New York incident created so many ‘honoured dead’,” “Thor related to Loki,” “Avenger defends Loki’s actions.”

The Avengers’ popularity takes a sharp nosedive, but not enough for Fury to lift the ban on Stark’s speaking at public functions.

Barton and Romanov end up confined to the tower for the safety of the public when some of Loki’s anti-SHELD henchmen try for a plea bargain and end up naming them as instigators of several crimes, in several countries. Stark’s pretty little conquest Everheart finds an anonymous tip on her phone from a number that will never be traced, and finds it easy to dig up old arrest warrants. It doesn’t help that Banner’s eyes flash a noticeable and obvious green when Everheart tries to corner him for a quote. He ends up fleeing the scene, shirt straining against suddenly bulging shoulders, and the pasts of Barton and Romanov fade away under speculation of the present danger New York might very well be in with a time bomb like Banner in their midst.  

Coulson does end up in her office after that, having left his teams in Arizona under Sitwell and driving through the night to see the media storm for himself. She doesn’t allow him to start another diatribe about how this is 'somehow her fault.' It’s not as though any of this is fabricated; every word that chips away at the Avengers’ credibility is true, and she is busy. In the wake of these sudden revelations, she’s been fielding more than the usual number of demands for contingency planning sessions and various reports. In fact, the WSC has demanded that all SHIELD contact with the Avengers be immediately terminated. They clearly don’t want their secret agency to be involved when this powder keg inevitably explodes.

Coulson clearly intends to ignore that order, and SHIELD can’t afford to lose another good agent. Maria gropes around for something to save him from himself and throws a file at him. Loki was spotted in Ireland over the weekend. With everything that’s happening right now, the Avengers can hardly be deployed, not unless they want to spread the panic globally. At the moment, the concern is at least limited to the United States, which will give the Avengers some space to fall back if, and when, that becomes necessary.

Coulson looks like he is actually considering disembowelling her, but she has his king in her sights and Coulson is firmly on the run. Loki takes precedence over hand holding, and she outranks him. The Avengers will have to weather this storm alone.

She waits until she knows he’s gone and she confirms his arrival in Ireland with three different sources, only two of them SHIELD. Maria didn’t get where she is without being careful and the world is depending on her to get this right. When she is certain that Coulson is out of the picture, too far away to change her game plan, she calls Nick on their private line.

“This had better be important, Hill.”

“It is, sir. I have a plan for what to do about the Avengers.”

The director doesn’t sigh with relief, he’s too good, but she feels the lessening of his tension. With the WSC’s order he hasn’t been able to get near them, he’s too identifiable.

“What do you need?”

“I need you to run interference for me with the Council and their spies. I’m bringing Captain Rogers in. We need to talk with him about the future of his team.”

Nick disconnects without answering. Maria settles into her desk chair and slowly finishes her now-cold coffee. She waits until she knows it’s been done and then she calls Captain Rogers.

“Can you come to the Helicarrier, Captain.” She doesn’t make it a question. “We need to talk about your team.”

“There’s…uh…reporters. Outside.”

“Stark has been getting around reporters all his life. I’m sure there’s a less obvious exit you can use.”

Steve sighs. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Captain. And please, come alone. Some of the things we need to discuss are less than pleasant, and we can do without the more…volatile members of your team.”

She disregards the unease in his voice when he says, “Yes, ma’am,” again. He’s wary, but he should be. And Maria will have no problem bringing him around to her point of view.

She’s always been good with people.


	8. Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.  
> Rating: PG-13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

Natasha goes to Coulson’s office even though it’s empty; Coulson’s on a mission. She goes _because_ it’s empty. In Coulson’s empty office she is safe and secure and more comforted than she would ever admit to anyone. Here, and here alone, she can think of the people for whom she would bleed, without worrying that she is about to be betrayed by whatever has been left in their place. It helps that she knows there is no surveillance in here.

She is more than a little surprised when Thor finds her. She is sure that she has never so much as hinted that, while other people might run home and sit at their mother’s table in times of distress, she curls up on her handler’s couch. She is doubly certain that even if she _had_ inadvertently dropped such clues, Thor would not be the one to pick up on them.

She raises an eyebrow at him and he gives her the warm, friendly smile that Thor bestows on everybody and then turns to shut the door. Natasha takes the second to compose herself. Even with her teammates she doesn’t like being this well known, this predictable. She is here because she already feels vulnerable and, with the lack of Clint at her back a searing wound, this is where she has gone to ground. By the time Thor turns back to her, Natasha prides herself that she is utterly unreadable. She favours him with a warm expression of her own and curls her legs more tightly beneath her. It’s a position that took years to master, giving off the impression of a contented kitten while really allowing her to use her legs as a springboard should she need to attack.

“What can I do for you, Thor?”, she asks calmly.

Thor looks away from her, his eyes briefly meandering around the room. “The Son of Coul is not here,” he observes.

“No. I come here to read sometimes. It’s nice to be able to relax without worrying that Tony is going to blow something up.” Her tone invites him to share the joke.

He smiles, but doesn’t answer. The uneasiness in Natasha’s stomach intensifies. Before she can say anything, Thor flops down next to her. He bends forward, hands between his knees and face hidden by his long tresses. “Lady Natasha,” he says decisively, “I wish to ask your opinion on a matter of the heart.”

If she was the kind of person who started in surprise, she would have done so. “I don’t know that I’m the person to ask about that kind of thing, Thor. Maybe Pepper-?” she starts.

Thor looks up at her, vivid eyes wide and beseeching. “I would prefer to ask you, unless you do not wish to speak of such intimate secrets with me.”

She doesn’t. Not without confirmation that he is who he says he is. “What’s your question?” she asks instead, steady and level.

“How do you love a fragile mortal and not go mad with the thought of everything that can befall them?”

Professional that she is, even Natasha can’t stop the blanch this time. Thor’s question cuts far too deeply. It has been all she has been able to think of for days; the horrors that Clint, and the rest of her team, might be undergoing at the hands of whoever has stolen their shape. However, Thor's head is bowed again and he doesn’t see it. She tries to deflect. “I’m a fragile mortal too. Maybe it’s just not as obvious to me.”

“Surely that fact must make you more aware, not less.”

That’s true too. She knows every way in which Clint can be broken because she knows every way in which she has been. Thor’s shrewd tone makes her bristle and she doesn’t answer.

“Tell me, Lady Natasha,” Thor begs. “I fear for My Lady Jane every time she steps out of her door, yet you allow your paramour to enter combat where he could be so easily slain. You allow it even after seeing what others can do to him.”

Natasha doesn’t know if he means the scars or Loki, but she sees both in her mind and, hidden by the bulk of her body, one of her hands twitches slightly, seeking an enemy to attack. “I trust him,” she replies without thinking.

Thor relaxes, and she abruptly realises that she’s been fooled. This is about Clint, about her feelings towards him, and has nothing to do with Thor’s 'matter of the heart' at all. Her breath doesn’t catch because she’s too well trained, but she tenses imperceptibly. They – or at least Thor - have noticed her behaviour. If he is not who he claims, now is the time to strike.

She is the Black Widow and it is in her nature to have assessed even her closest allies – her _friends_ , her heart quails as it reminds her – as potential targets, and, of all of them, even Hulk, Thor is the one she would never choose to face. She should never have allowed him to settle between her and the door, should never have allowed him so close to her at all. It's a simple error; these days she’s too accustomed to having a team that would die a thousand deaths before turning on her for backup. She really is nothing but a stupid little girl.

She shakes the recriminations firmly from her mind; there will be time enough for them later if she survives this. She tenses further, a little more obviously and gives the minute twitch of her wrist that dislodges the knife strapped to her forearm. It’s a mere fraction of a second from being in her fingers now.

Thor does nothing but settle deeper back in his seat, his body giving more space to hers so she no longer feels crowded or hemmed in. “So you do still trust him? Despite the way he has acted these past weeks?”

It takes Natasha a moment to realise what Thor is talking about. She was so prepared for attack that she had taken her mind from the conversation. There is nothing more to be gained from pretending to be one of these false Avengers though, so although her voice is guarded Natasha answers truthfully. “I trust the real Clint. I don’t trust whatever the _thing_ in my home is, and I don’t trust any of you.” She allows the blade to drop into her hand, and as fast as thought, moves forward, straddling Thor. Her legs wind around him and her free hand twists in his hair so she will be difficult and painful to dislodge. She digs the knife into the pulse she can feel in Thor’s neck. “I will find my friends,” she continues, “and I will make you pay for doing this to us. If they are hurt, if any of them have so much as a bruise,” the knife rasps up Thor’s face, leaving skin scraped raw in its wake and she stops with the point digging in just under Thor’s eye, “I will take my vengeance in blood and pain and-” the knife wanders left, coming to rest below his ear this time, “less important appendages.”

Natasha waits, ready for anything: threats, laughter, an attack. She’s ready for pleas to believe that he is who he says he is – pleas that might even be true, and oh, if only she had a way to know for _certain_. She’s ready for him to agree that there is something wrong with their team and, now that Thor knows she is as she claims, they can work on getting them back.

Thor stays still and for a long moment he is silent, weighing his words and then repeating, “But you trust the man you know to be Clint Barton?”

“Yes,” the word is wrenched unwillingly from between clenched teeth as she struggles to understand why she must be forced to reiterate this particular point over and over. How can they use this against either of them? Or is it only to make her suffer? Either way, she cannot betray Clint by refusing to speak in his defense.

Thor nods, and seemingly doesn’t notice the beads of blood that well beneath his earlobe where the knife digs in more sharply against the small motion. “And the other Avengers? You trust them also?”

“Yes.”

“Even me?”

This time the drops of blood are from where her own hand involuntarily jerks. Again Thor seems not to notice, his eyes boring into hers like they can see into her very soul in the way that gods are known for. “I trust _Thor_ ,” she specifies.

His lips twitch. “I have no way of convincing you I am who I claim. You must have already reasoned that anything that had taken our forms must also have stolen our memories to have fooled the world for this long. Nevertheless, may I tell you a story?”

Natasha nods shortly, but doesn’t lower the knife.

Thor holds her gaze and doesn’t move. “Once there was woman, a warrior, beautiful and strong and graced with power and skill, and there was a man whom she loved deeply.”

“Is there a point to this?” Natasha interrupts, an edge to her voice.

“There is, but you mush permit me to reach it in my own way.”

Natasha isn’t certain the knife will kill him since it doesn’t even seem to be hurting him, so for that reason alone she nods and rocks back a little, settling more comfortably on Thor’s broad thighs to listen.

“This man,” Thor continues, “was also a warrior, naturally, as such a woman would need someone strong to capture and retain her heart. But for all their skill, tragedy befell the couple and the man was taken by a sorcerer and put under a spell. The woman was able to get him back, but the man was deeply hurt by the knowledge of what he had done while under the spell. He never again trusted magic after that, even when wielded by friends.”

Natasha forces herself to hold steady, not to flinch. Whoever this is, let him – it – talk; she might learn something useful.

“They were both sworn knights of a realm, champions of a king sworn to shield all others from harm, and as was the way of their lives, eventually the woman was called upon to complete a quest. Honourable as she was, it never occurred to the woman to refuse her duty. So she left, leaving her partner to fend for himself – as he was more than capable of doing – and in the care of their friends, their shield brothers, whom she trusted to prevent harm from befalling him. Yet while she was gone, the sorcerer returned.”

Natasha’s hand quivers very slightly. It would be the perfect moment to grab her wrist and force her to drop the blade, a moment of weakness to exploit. The thing that looks like her friend seems to not even notice and keeps talking, seemingly content to let her hold the knife to his open throat as he does so.

“It was not unexpected. The sorcerer was the brother of one of their number and held a powerful grudge against these warriors who had thwarted his plans in the past. But this time he was able to corner the man, alone, up high on his archer’s perch, before he could be stopped.”

“What did he do to him?” Natasha raps out, forcing herself to pull back slightly to keep from slitting the throat in front of her before learning her answer.

Thor gives a twisted, bitter smile, an expression more suited to Loki’s face than his own open one. “As far as we can determine, he simply talked to him.” Thor sighs, and spreads his hands, though he makes no attempt to touch her, nor to push her further away. He drops his story telling voice and continues in his normal deep tones. “Clint was very understanding that we might need to run checks on him. We can determine no hint of enchantment. He even permitted my mother to check him over. In fact, other than being a little quieter than usual, for many weeks there seemed to be nothing amiss.”

Natasha breathes deep, and lowers her weapon. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

This time the smile is more honest, though it still contains a hint of Loki’s wry, mocking amusement. For the first time it occurs to Natasha that Thor and Loki were brothers for millennia before they were enemies. She has never seen a trace of Thor in Loki, but then, she has never cared to look. It’s a thought that chills her, and ironically, it is then that Thor answers, “You do not. You cannot. However, you said you trust him and that you trust us. I ask for nothing more.”

“He’s different,” Natasha says tightly. The words burn and hurt. She has played the traitor before. She is the Black Widow and she is an expert at betrayal, but never, _never_ has she betrayed _Clint_. The trust that Thor asks of her, eyes so wide and earnest, risks nothing less. “He’s different and none of you seem to notice.” 'Or care' goes unspoken.

“We have noticed. He is quieter, and capable of a cruelty I have never seen in him before. He no longer seeks our company, and we can find no reason for it. At first I thought one of us had done him a wrong, but he has refused all apologies and has seemed stricken when we try to make amends.”

“And you’re sure he’s Clint?” Natasha presses, not at all certain she can even believe the answer. She's unable to easily let go of her own gut-deep belief that whatever it is in her home – wearing her lover’s face, and hurting her so casually, is not Clint at all.

“As I have told you, we have been able to detect nothing amiss. This is no enchantment nor changeling.”

Natasha’s eyes flutter shut and her grip, still on the handle of the knife, slackens slightly. If she is going to die now, she will accept it, but she is too tired and heartsick to keep her guard up any longer. “Even if you are who you claim to be, Thor, how do you know the people who did the tests are? Maybe Stark’s been replaced, too. Banner. Phil. The rest of the world.” It sounds hopeless when she says it like that.

A strong hand lands on her shoulder and she waits for the pain and violence that an enemy as powerful as Thor could do with such a grip, but the hand doesn’t move for a vulnerable spot, no squeeze past endurance. It simply stays, warm and steadying and offering her the support that she has never known how to ask for. “You are a strong warrior, Lady Natasha, one of the strongest it has been my honour to fight alongside, but you cannot battle all the world, not alone. Will you allow us to help you?”

Her gaze darts up to his and he smiles at her, leaning closer, but it doesn’t feel like a threat.

“We came for you when you were taken by our enemies.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” she says harshly, remembering their complete refusal to hear her doubts, even after everything she suffered to learn who was still her friend.

The hand slides down her arm and takes her hand in his. “We came for you because you are one of our own. My offer of aid is not an expression of your weakness, it is because none of us would see you suffer alone.”

“Clint-”

“Whatever ails our archer, we will find the cause and annihilate it. I ask you to believe that I can think of no greater honour than being permitted to stand at your side to do so.”

Natasha is the Black Widow and has seen horrors even a centuries-old Viking can’t comprehend, but she wants to put her head on Thor’s shoulder and weep like any other heartsick girl. Instead, she draws a shuddering breath. “And if it is Loki? If he’s hurting Clint again?”

This time, it is Thor’s breath that hitches when he inhales. “Loki is my brother, and I doubt I could ever mortally harm him. But I swear to you, I pledge it on Mjolnir, that I will aid you in whatever way I can in stopping his wickedness. Furthermore-” he swallows, licks his lips, and looks away, “by the law of Asgard, you and the other Avengers are the Champions of Earth, the warrior elite, and Loki has threatened your people and your world too many times. The Right of Vengeance is yours should you wish to take it. This time, I will not ask for mercy on Loki’s behalf.”

Natasha wants to call it a lie, wants to say that the Thor _she_ knows would never say such a thing, would never risk his brother to the doubtable mercy of a paid killer, but she can’t look into the tortured determination of his eyes and make herself believe it. “Your assertion is that Clint has changed, but that it is _Clint_ who has changed, rather than something has changed him?”

“Yes.”

Natasha respects that simple agreement, no attempt to dissemble or prevaricate. She considers, and is grateful for the time Thor gives her to do so. Other than the apparent obliviousness to the differences in Clint, and Stark’s utter refusal to even contemplate that something is wrong, she is unable to find anything in the actions of the others signalling a problem. Anything capable of mimicking them so perfectly would surely be capable of doing a better job with its imitation of Clint. She takes another breath and fights down the panic that she really is about to betray Clint because the Black Widow can’t tell friend from foe. “Alright, then what do you suggest we do?”

The smile Thor gives her is full of unrestrained happiness, even as his tone is serious. “You know him best. We were hoping you’d have an idea.”

If she is going to trust, she must trust. To speak words of friendship and then lie will simply create more that must be overcome at some later stage. It will tear them apart. Natasha knows that and she lets go of the last of her distrust as she says, “Phil. We need to speak to Phil.”


	9. Tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

** Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself **

 

 

Tony looks up at the same moment that JARVIS says, “I am registering a disturbance in the ventilation shafts, sir. It is probable that Agent Barton is overhead.”

That, Tony thinks, probably accounts for the almost unnoticeable scuffing sound that had drawn his attention. “Thanks, J.” He appreciates the heads up. He’s not doing anything confidential, or even particularly exciting, just the general repair work that a group of superheroes living together – two of whom know _beans_ about modern technology – manage to create in an average week. Still, they’re supposed to be monitoring Clint now, making sure he isn’t compromised, and it makes the low tension in Tony’s belly hurt to think about it, but it’s probably for the best. Loki’s already killed him once, and Tony’ll be damned if he puts Clint through that again. “Hey, Birdbrain! I know you’re up there.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Tony is expecting the small noise again as Clint slinks away. He never just comes down here to hang out now, doesn’t hang out with any of them now as far as Tony knows. He hasn’t been able to ask Clint why; old fears that maybe Clint just doesn’t _want_ to be around him, that he’s just not good enough, resurfacing and keeping the words behind his teeth.

So he’s surprised when, after a moment, a petulant but recognisable voice says, “No, you don’t.”

Tony snorts and goes back to the coffee machine. At this point, it’s more patchwork repairs than it is original parts. Tony is _so_ glad he has his own and doesn’t rely on this one. “Yes, I do. I heard you.”

There’s a grating noise as the ventilation cover slides back and then the sound of Clint’s feet as he lands lightly. “Your pet AI heard me. It’s not the same.”

Tony raises his head, about to give a snarky remark about how no, actually, this time, he _did_ hear Clint, but stops when he gets a good look at the archer’s face. Tony knows sleep deprivation, but Clint is so white and the circles under his eyes so pronounced that he looks like a corpse. There’s a very fine tremor in his hands, something Tony’s never seen before. Clint’s hands are steadier than even Bruce’s. Always. It’s no surprise he was louder than usual, the state he’s in. Tony is impressed that he was as quiet as he was. “Yeah, well,” he says instead, “I created JARVIS so it still counts.”

Clint snorts. “In your dreams, Stark,” but it’s obvious his heart isn’t in it.

If there’s one thing Tony is good at, it’s talking, so even though he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to even begin to ask the questions that are beginning to crowd his mind – questions like what’s wrong never _never_ sound right from him – but he has no trouble filling what could easily become an awkward silence.

He can’t bring himself to look at Clint’s pseudo dead eyes, too wide and too blank, like he’s been puppetified again, but the coffee machine does need fixing, and for all that Tony could do it in his sleep, it’s fine fiddly work and it’s natural to look down at it as he speaks. He fills the dead air with a litany of complaints about the breakages, about the fact that he’s explained to Thor _on four separate occasions_ that using electricity in the kitchen will not _help the appliances go faster_ , and will just break them. And he appreciates that Steve has more strength than he knows what to do with nowadays, but really? Is it so hard to figure out how much pressure is required to push a button without cracking the whole microwave? And while they’re on the subject, would it actually hurt Clint not to perch on top of anything that doesn’t move for long enough? Refrigerators, particularly Stark augmented ones, might _look_ durable, but they’re not built for fully grown assassins to spend entire afternoons sitting on.

He glances up at Clint and notices he looks slightly shell-shocked, but that’s better than the expression that was on his face, so Tony continues. “I hope you’re all proud of yourselves that, as a group, you’ve actually managed to be more destructive than the Hulk.”

For a second, there’s a flicker in Clint’s eyes, and Tony tenses, his subconscious telling him that that particular flicker is the prelude to an uncomfortable apology that he doesn’t deserve and doesn’t want. He’s not even really pissed, for God’s sake, he just needed something to say.

“Well,” Clint shrugs instead and hitches a smile onto his face. It isn’t easy going and flippant; it’s cold and dark and sharp edged, and if there wasn’t a workbench in the way, Tony would draw back from it. “Maybe it’s because I’m evil.”

“You’re not-” Tony starts, but he can’t help the weakness in his voice, nor the quaver. He trusts Clint, absolutely and unconditionally, he’d give him the Arc reactor out of his own chest if he asked. Clint is one of his best friends, but with that smile turned on him he can’t quite dredge up the absolute negation he wants to.

Clint – there is no other word for it – _stalks_ toward him and Tony forces himself not to swallow, not to flinch, not to cover the glowing light in his chest. Instead, he pulls himself up taller and tilts his chin. He’s faced every enemy the supervillain community has thrown at him on his feet, with defiance and a cocky smile, and a PMS-ing _Barton_ certainly isn’t going to make him cower.

Clint huffs with something like impatience and stops, close enough to Tony to be intimidating, but Tony knows – from unfortunate experience – that he can loom much more menacingly. “You have no _idea_ ,” he spits. “I could be working for _anyone_. You have _no idea_ what Loki might have left in my head.”

Tony raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Not to belittle the obvious hard-on Loki has for you, but if he was going to turn anyone evil _I’d_ be the obvious choice. I’m half way there anyway. And there’s nothing in my head that shouldn’t be there.”

Clint swallows and half closes his eyes like he’s forcing himself to do something and steps closer into Tony’s space. Ah, there’s the loom Tony knew he was capable of. “Alright, Stark. Forget Loki,” he hisses, hoarsely. “You’ve read my file. You know what I’m capable of.” He reaches out, and his hand ghosts for a fraction of a second over the Arc reactor, but before Tony can object, it’s moved on and up so that the callous-roughened palm is around his throat instead. “How do you know I haven’t just… _snapped_?”

Tony refuses to swallow. He won’t show that kind of fear, even though he _knows_ that Clint must be able to feel the way his pulse rate has sky-rocketed. He sets his jaw in an obstinate frown and puts his own hand on Clint’s chest. It doesn’t take much of a shove to push him back a few steps, and Tony’s grateful for the space. “I’m not the most observant person around when it comes to other people, but I figure JARVIS would let me know if you started giving your kitchen knives girls’ names and cackling wildly on the roof top in the middle of storms.”

There’s a twitch of something that might be the beginning of laughter on Clint’s face, then he lowers his head to growl. “You’re right.”

“Exactly. I’m a genius, I’m always right. So if you’ll just _get the fuck over_ whatever this little episode is, we can-”

“Maybe it’s just you.”

Tony’s breath catches in his throat. “-go check out- I…What?”

“Maybe, Stark,” Clint raises his head again and his eyes are blazing. Tony feels cold all over. “Maybe it’s just you I can’t stand. All your endless talk and endless gifts. You still haven’t learned your lesson about trying to buy people have you? It doesn’t make them _like_ you. And slaving away down here fixing whatever we broke today doesn’t make you _generous_ or _indispensable_. It makes you a fucking doormat.”

Tony rocks on his heels. “Natasha’s right,” he says coldly. “I don’t care what our tests show. You’re not Clint.”

“Yeah?” Clint sneers. “Try telling people that I’m not me because I was _mean_ to you. They’ll laugh in your face. None of them like you. I’m only saying what everyone’s thinking.”

“You’re not Clint,” Tony repeats firmly and tells his quailing heart that he believes his own words.

Clint laughs and vaults for the ventilation shaft he came down from.

“Sir,” begins JARVIS.

“Let him go, J,” Tony says, watching Clint’s feet as they disappear up and into the ceiling. When he’s gone, and only then, does Tony allow himself to slump. He’s shaking almost as much as Clint was. DUM-E comes close, butting his midriff with his strut and beeping concernedly. Tony absently pets him.

“Sir,” JARVIS says hesitantly, “I believe you were correct in your earlier statement. I do not believe Agent Barton would say such things to you.”

Tony gives a bitter laugh. “You don’t? It’s not even the first time he’s said it.”

JARVIS’ voice sharpens. “But I do not believe he’d say it now. Whatever my scans do, or do not, show, I do not believe Agent Barton is himself.”

“His eyes were normal,” Tony says to the floor, fingers still roving over DUM-E and voice little more than a mumble.

“Perhaps.” There’s another beat of hesitation; a lifetime to a computer as sophisticated as JARVIS. “But would you truly condemn Agent Barton to the fate of being trapped inside his own mind simply because Loki has perfected the ability to hide his influence?”

Tony looks up sharply. “That’s blackmail, J.”

“It is only a question, sir.”

Tony huffs and lets go of DUM-E pushing himself up straight once again. “Lock down the tower, JARVIS. No one gets in or out without my express authorisation. And get Steve down here.” His heart cringes at the final instruction. Clint’s words have left all the wounded places inside of him raw and open but he refuses to even acknowledge the thought that Steve might believe those things about him. He doesn’t, not anymore. He _doesn’t_.

There’s a whirring sound, JARVIS’ equivilant of a nod and Tony is grateful the AI didn’t try to reassure him as to Steve’s loyalties. He’s not sure he could take that without crying and he’d really rather not be a whimpering mess in Steve’s presence.

“And pull up Clint’s latest scans,” Tony pushes the mostly working coffee machine to the side. “Let’s see what we’ve missed.”


	10. SHIELD HQ 2008: Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

** Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself **

 

**10 SHIELD HQ 2008**

“Agent Romanov,” Coulson said calmly from behind her.

Natasha didn’t jump and start in her chair only because of years of practise, but she was surprised. Even in the crowded Mess she should have heard him coming up behind her, and even if her subconscious had characterised Coulson as safe she should have recognised how unusual it was that he enter the Mess at all. Coulson hated HQ food more than anyone else she knew and was more than capable of subsisting on donuts and coffee until he got a chance to go home or order take out.

Allowing her eyes to widen very slightly, she turned. Her expression conveyed all the surprise she was willing to show, and her questions, so she said nothing.

“Walk with me,” Coulson said, bland and pleasant as always.

Natasha looked at her wilting sandwich. It didn’t look appetising, but it was also the first food she’d had a chance to eat since Wednesday. Still, there was something in Coulson’s voice that made her stand immediately.

He didn’t say anything, but something eased in his shoulders. She followed him silently from the Mess, sparing a second of her attention to glare at the table of junior agents as they speculated in not-so-hushed voices that she must be in trouble for her handler to come and pull her out of lunch. They remained silent through the corridors and Natasha found herself cataloguing Coulson in a way she hadn’t in years. She hadn’t needed to. She no longer needed to be able to determine every move he might make; she trusted him to do nothing that would hurt her and to have good reasons for the actions she didn’t understand.

Now she was desperately curious, and there was a tight ball of unease in her stomach. It made her gut churn unpleasantly, and she was suddenly not hungry anymore. Nonetheless, her face stayed absolutely impassive as she padded silently behind Coulson. She wasn’t surprised when they stopped at his office, nor when Coulson opened the door and gestured her in with a nod, but it did make the knot in her stomach tighten. Coulson was a high level agent and a personal friend of the Director. His office was not monitored. It was why she sometimes slept there when she was required to stay on base for an extended period of time.

Coulson closed the door. He didn’t lock it; he never locked it. Even though Natasha knew he was good, she couldn’t help but be impressed at the way he left no tell betraying his unease, even as tightly wound as she had ever seen him. For her part, she walked across the room and settled on the battered grey couch, because that was what she would normally do. Coulson perched on the corner of his desk, leaning against the wood and careless of the creases he was putting into his always immaculate suit jacket and trousers.

“Barton is gone,” he said without hesitation.

Natasha blinked, almost more surprised by that than by anything else so far. “Gone where?” she asked. “He can barely move.” It was only a slight exaggeration. He had only been out of the ICU for a few weeks and only discharged from medical the day before. He still had to go to medical daily for an exam.

There was a slight bite to Coulson’s voice as he said, “If I knew that, I would go and get him myself. He’s not on base, nor is he in any of his usual spots or any of the safehouses of which I'm aware. I wondered if you might know anywhere else he could have gone to ground.”

Natasha was still blinking her bewilderment. “But why would he leave?” _Without telling me?_ she didn’t allow herself to even think, much less add.

The slight sympathy in Coulson’s eyes was enough to tell her that he might have heard the thought anyway. It wasn’t the first time that she had wondered if he was meta. “The op Barton was on is classified.”

Natasha nodded to show that she had heard and understood; the information wasn’t new.

“How much do you know about it?” Coulson asked.

Habit kept her face straight but she couldn’t help the way her eyes darted away from his. It was the first time Coulson had made any mention of the fact that she and Clint were a little more open with their so called 'classified missions' to one another than regs perhaps recommended. “We don’t-” she started.

“Natasha,” and for all her vaunted and practised emotionlessness, she flinched at the sound of her name. Coming from Coulson, on SHIELD premises no less, things were deadly serious for him to take such a liberty. “Natasha, you and Barton are far from the first – or only – couple that are both SHIELD agents. People understand… _I_ understand. I am not about to berate you.”

“He was in Russia,” the words were almost unwilling. It was a secret she would share only with Coulson, and only him because she knew – she _hoped_ – that he would protect Clint as she would. “Child prostitution ring. One of the nurses said his injuries were consistent with interrogation. He was weeks overdue. It was only supposed to be a month long op.” That, more than anything, had tortured her. She had known Clint should be back, but there had been no one she could ask, because it wouldn’t be her who would suffer for the asking. It would be Clint for revealing even part of a classified mission brief.

Coulson nodded. “He was in enemy hands for twenty days.”

“You led the extraction team.”

Coulson nodded again. “I wanted to take you, but I was overruled.” His jaw tensed fractionally. “Others were concerned that your personal relationship would complicate things.”

This – _This_ – was exactly why Natasha didn’t allow herself to care about people. They were always used against you.

“His interrogation was…thorough. You know how severe his injuries were. He also flat-lined on the transport home twice. An overdose of various truth drugs. He confessed to talking, although he wasn’t conscious enough to tell us what he had said.”

“Coulson,” Natasha said, and her voice wavered unforgivably, torn between harsh recrimination and pleading. “He’s a sniper, a level four asset. He doesn’t _know_ enough to be a real threat, even if he told them everything. And if he was in their hands for twenty days and _still alive_ he didn’t give anything up without a fight. Everyone talks eventually. You _know_ that. You can’t-”

He held up a hand and Natasha fell silent instead of pulling a weapon on him only because she respected him so much. “We know. Everyone knows. There would have been a tribunal as a matter of protocol, but it would have been nothing more than a formality. Fury, Hill and myself know far too well that there is only so much anyone can take. The few security codes Barton does know have been changed and the three most recent bases he was at placed on higher alert until we can gauge the extent of the damage.”

Natasha breathed out slowly. Coulson was one of the few people probably capable of lying to her, but she didn’t believe he was. “Very well. So?”

Coulson’s jaw tensed unhappily again, and his eyes cut to the side. “I think Barton doesn’t realise any of that. I think that in his current state all he knows is that he gave information to the enemy. I need to find him before anyone else realises he’s missing. At the moment, this is no worse than any other FUBAR mission. If word gets out that he’s running…The last thing any of us need is for Hill to suggest he’s compromised.”

“He isn’t. Clint would do anything for SHIELD.”

“I know.” Coulson reached out to her, taking her by both shoulders and giving her a slight shake as though he was securing the attention which was riveted absolutely on him. “ _I_ know. I need to find him, but even barely on his feet Clint is capable of going to ground and evading capture.”

“I’ll help.”

Coulson gave a quick shake of the head in negation. “What you need to do is go somewhere crowded, make two cups of tea and a plate of sandwiches and make a lot of noise about looking after Barton. Then go to his quarters and stay there.”

“There are security cameras in-”

“I know. But they won’t be looked at unless we can’t find Barton. Of course, if we can’t it’ll become apparent you were lying and you’ll go down with him.”

Natasha shrugged gracefully. If SHIELD ever started hunting Clint she would leave anyway and they both knew it. “I can’t just-”

“I need a distraction and time,” he said brutally. He pushed a pad across the table, a pen neatly on top of it. “Give me some suggestions where to look.”

She didn’t bother with the address of her official apartment, nor Clint’s. Neither of them regularly used those apartments. They were too exposed and she suspected that they have just as much surveillance as the barracks accommodation. Coulson will already have checked those anyway. “We have a s afehouse in Queens.”

“I’ve been there.”

She smiled slightly. “The one in New Jersey?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a loft in Midtown. It belongs to some guy Clint knows. It’s not… _safe_ but he could be sure of food and a shower, maybe a bed for the night. The guy’s a coward. He’ll crumble if you put any pressure into asking him about Clint. And he knows how to do the homeless circuit, so check the shelters. If you don’t look like a fed, street kids will tell you anything they know for a little pocket change.”

Coulson shook his head. “I thought of that. I don’t think…he’s too injured, too conspicuous on the streets, and he can’t protect himself.”

Natasha looked determinedly down at the paper, pen dancing along it to leave lines in her large looping handwriting. She couldn’t think about Clint, helpless and alone with no one at his six. That was not the way to be able to focus enough to get this done. “There are a lot of abandoned apartment blocks in the Bronx. Most of them even still have running water. We go there sometimes when we need privacy. But…Coulson, you’re right. He’s injured.”

Coulson pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow.

“He can’t have gone far. He just isn’t capable of it at the moment.”

“Tell me what you’re thinking, Romanov.”

“I’m…you know he had a stint as a car thief as a teenager? He can’t have gone far and he must have holed up somewhere. Check the parking lots in a six block radius of here. He could have jacked a car and be curled up in the back of it.”

Coulson blinked and she actually saw the moment where this information was the missing piece in his puzzle. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, that’s it.” He patted her hand, awkwardly paternal. “I’ll find him. You just buy us some time.”

She nodded and left, feeling a strange lightness in the fact that it didn’t raise the hairs on the back of her neck to entrust Clint’s safety – and her own – to someone else.

Hours later, in Clint’s bed, wrapped tightly around him to make sure he couldn’t leave again, she was jerked out of her half doze by his rough voice. “You told Coulson where to find me.”

It wasn’t a question but Natasha answered anyway. “Yes.”

“He could’ve put a bullet behind my ear.”

“He wouldn’t,” she said simply.

Clint laughed. “It’s weird to hear _you_ campaigning for trust and loyalty.”

“He wouldn’t. You’re _his_ asset, and Coulson takes that seriously.”

Clint rolled over, though the movement forced a groan out of him, and Natasha smacked him in the shoulder for hurting himself.

“And you? What am I to you?” His voice was intense and needy.

“You’re mine.”

There was a beat. “Your what?”

“Just mine.”

“Yours?”

“Complaining?”

He huffed out a soft sigh. “I don’t understand,” he admitted, sounding irritated.

Natasha wriggled closer to him, until there wasn’t even a sliver of air between them. “It means I’ll _always_ come after you. You don’t get to just leave.”

“That’s not actually comforting. That’s stalking.”

“That’s how it is. Until you give me a reason not to, that’s how it is.”

“A reason?”

“Hmmm. And considering all the trouble I’ve been through for you, it’d better be a damn good reason.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in love?”

Natasha scrunched up her nose. “Ewww,” she said theatrically, a lightness permitted only with Clint, and only now because she was so relieved he was alive and here with her. “Who said anything about love?”

“Usually, that’s what 'I’ll stay with you forever' _means_.”

“In this case, it means I’m not very good at making friends, and I have no interest in putting myself to this trouble all over again.”

“Right.”

“I mean it.”

“And I said right.”

“When you’re not mostly held together with stitches, I’m going to beat you up and I’m going to let all the level ones watch.”

“You’re so romantic, Tash.”

There was another silence.

“Forever, huh?” Clint asked eventually. “You’ll come after me, every time I leave, forever?”

“Every time,” Natasha promised solidly, meaning every word. “So you’d better not leave. I’ve got better things to do than chase you.”


	11. Clint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Sorry it's been so long. This is one of the chapters that is specifically warned for suicide. Whilst it doesn't actually happen, there's some fairly serious contemplation, and those with severe triggers should proceed with caution.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

Clint doesn’t make it far into the vents after leaving Tony. He makes it to a spot that he knows for a fact is a blind spot for JARVIS and that the billionaire can’t hear him, then he curls into the smallest ball he can manage and just lets the self-loathing wash over him. He doesn’t cry; he doesn’t think he can anymore. He thinks about going back and apologising to Tony. He thinks about putting out a general _assemble_ call and getting them all into the rec room to apologise to all of them. He thinks about going to Tasha and letting her stand between him and the world, and he thinks about letting Phil fix all of his problems as he always has.

_Yes, Little Bird, stay with them, make certain they trust you. With them surrounding you, I can have you take them all down. They’ll never even know what hit them._

Clint can’t quite suppress the whimper and huddles further and deeper into his arms, knees jerking up against his chest. It’s humiliating, cringing and hiding like this. It’s pathetic. It’s what he has been driven to. Fucking Loki. He sinks his teeth deep into the inside of his cheek; bite marks on his lip will only draw attention that he can’t afford, but he deserves the pain, needs it to ground himself. He needs to make the others hate him. As soon as they hate him, he can go. Without conscious thought, his hand drops to the knife in his boot, caressing its viciously sharp edge. It isn’t the first time he’s thought about another way out.

Clint isn’t sure if it’s his thought, or Loki’s, but it’s right. He isn’t there yet. Almost, though. The demi god is louder now, more distracting, more _constant_ , pulling his mind away at crucial moments to allow Tasha to be almost eviscerated by a Doombot; necessitating putting _that_ look back on Tony’s face, the one he swore he’d never be responsible for again; putting Tasha so far off her game a useless AIM cell had been able to capture her. But he’s still in control, he _is_. And Clint Barton is a survivor. It’s a bitter thought now, one that used to bring him pride however bleak the circumstances. Now it brands him as a coward, too afraid to do what must be done.

If he doesn’t have the guts to end it, to make sure that he can’t be used against the Avengers again, the only other option is to leave. And the problem with _that_ is that they will come after him. That would only be more dangerous for them. Without a reason to fight, without people he would offer every last drop of his blood for in an instant sleeping helplessly mere rooms away, he has no doubt that Loki will be able to take control again completely. If he is to run, he must know he won’t be followed.

Damn them all for being so forgiving. Normal people would have given up on him weeks ago.

It’s exhausting finding the will to fight Loki every moment, especially because he’s afraid to fall into a truly deep sleep, terrified that the absence of his conscious mind will be the toehold Loki needs to seize complete control. It’s even harder to find that strength when he reflects that it was fighting Loki that got him into this mess to begin with. He had been so fucking _proud_ of himself. So fucking proud that he’d found the strength to stand against one of the few people he truly feared. He’d regained enough self-respect to prefer the idea of going down swinging, his choice to die standing instead of living on his knees. He’d even been quick enough to draw blood. All that had done was allow Loki to mix it with Clint’s own, allowing the demi god to _claim_ him. Whatever that meant.

 _Blood-marked to me and bound as mine._ The echo, ever present in his memory, makes him whimper again. _I can always summon you to me._ He hadn’t believed Loki, had thought nothing of the threat, but he can’t deny that the voice in his head is getting louder. He needs to leave.

There has been so much blood and violence in Clint’s life. He has never thought twice about spilling his own. Now he wishes he’d listened to Phil at least a little, wishes that he’d cultivated some of those self-preservation instincts that his handler was always going on about. If he was quicker, better; if he had just been less stubborn, less proud, this could all have been prevented.

When Clint was a kid and bragged about what he could do with a bow, Trickshot would say _'Pride before a fall'_ just before making the shots more difficult and then beating him for failing. It’s even truer now. He had known how to placate Loki and he had refused because he is an _Agent of SHIELD_ , an _Avenger_. What good is he as either now? His mind isn’t even his own. He certainly can’t trust his own actions.

He needs to go.

It’s terrifying to think of being Loki’s unwitting, willing tool yet again. When he does sleep, he has disturbingly peaceful non-nightmares of the fierce joy that had seized him when Steve’s blood had bathed him, accompanied by soothing whispers and encouragements to just let go; Loki will see to it that that happiness becomes his natural state. It’s worse to think about losing this _family_ which has, against all odds, come together. He can barely imagine being as alone now as he was at twenty, forced to carve out a living with his fingernails with no one at his back. Going back to that…

But he can’t tell anyone. It’s not pride this time, not the cowardice that stills his finger on the trigger of his gun on the bad evenings when he pushes the barrel deep enough into his mouth to make himself gag. He can’t speak of it at all. If he needed any proof that the voice in his head is really his blood bond with Loki and not his own madness, that would be it. Everyone knows that Clint talks almost as much as Tony; it’s one of the reasons they get on so well, banter flying thick and fast between them. Finding his tongue stilled is almost as distressing as the whispers, as the images that Loki floods his mind with at night of his friends laid out, dead and bloody. His only other alternative is to intentionally slip up, to allow them to see his desperation and fear instead of the persona that he now has to draw on all his training to show to them. But giving them enough information to _guess_ what has been done to him is unthinkable. All that would do is send them off half-cocked, brave and loyal and determined to bring Loki down. They wouldn't realize that Loki can use Clint's entire _body_ as a transceiver to see them, to hear their plans, to know just what they intend to do. That’s his own fault too. He should have said something when this first started instead of allowing Loki to worm in this deeply.

 _You need to learn to ask for help, Hawkeye._ He should have listened to Phil when he had the chance. He should have told someone about the bond. He should have known that it wasn’t just words.

 _It is of no matter, Little Bird. Now_ I _will always be here to help you._ Clint flinches again to the accompaniment of high laughter.

He needs to go. But what does he have to do to keep them from following him?

He could attack one of them with a weapon instead of with mere words. Thor or Bruce would most likely survive anything he could muster against them, but he is no nearer to that than he is to the bullet which he suspects needs to be lodged in his brainpan. Words _have_ to be enough. They can heal from words. He _can’t_ hurt one of them physically. He just can’t. Besides, what if that’s enough to allow Loki to take true control of him? That’s the purpose Loki wants to put him to, after all.  

_An arrow in the monster, a bullet in the soldier, a scar across your wench’s lovely face. We’ll make the world burn, My Hawk, and we’ll start with your precious heroes._

'They can stop you', Clint thinks fiercely. 'They’ve always stopped you before. They’ll beat you and throw you into the blackest pit they can find.'

_It’s true no enemy with a weapon can get close enough to harm them, but I wonder how close they’d permit a friend?_

It’s not the first time Loki has made that particular threat, and it’s all the more terrifying because Clint knows it to be true. Tasha lets him make her drinks instead of insisting on sealed bottles; Steve sometimes sleeps deeply with his head pillowed on Clint's shoulder; Tony barely looks up when he drops from vents. He could kill them all far, far too easily. He swallows bile and falls silent. His strength must be saved for resistance; he has none left for taunting Loki, for pointless defiance. There are, he thinks, a great many people in SHIELD who would be delighted to discover that he has at last learned some humility.

He needs to go. It’s a knowledge that runs even deeper than the panic at Loki’s words. A soul deep understanding that is at his very core. A thought lodged so deep within him, even Loki seems to not recognize it. Making them hate him enough so that they don't follow him when he goes is they only chance they have. For that chance, for the certainty that they will at least not accept a poisoned cup from his hand, Clint can say what he must. He can hurt them because he has to, for their own safety.

He takes a deep breath and wipes the terror and misery off his face, replacing it with sarcastic insouciance. He can’t risk slipping up when he is so close. He is Clint Barton, and Loki’s plaything he may be, but he is also an Avenger and an Agent of SHIELD. He can do this. He has to do this. He is the veteran of literally hundreds of undercover missions. He can keep his cover, however distasteful it may be. He slowly crawls out of the vent, Loki’s creative suggestions for needlessly cruel things to say to Thor ringing in his ears.


	12. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.
> 
> I can only apologise for how long this has taken. RL has kicked my ass over the last year, but things are on a more even keel again. I am even writing again (fandom and original stuff so...). At the moment, I am finishing up part 3 of the Cover Story series, but I will be making regular updates to this and part 7, for those of you who have been waiting for a couple of years now, if once again (slowly) underway. I hope the ridiculously long hiatus hasn't put any of you off reading. I read so much more than I write and I know how off-putting it is when writers disappear for months without even the decency to let anyone know why, o an expected timeframe. For those who have stuck with me, who have reviewed and messaged and encouraged and even added to the meta, you guys picked me up when I was at my lowest and I hope you enjoy the remainder of this piece.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

Steve takes a long, slow shower to organize his thoughts when he returns to the tower from his third meeting with Hill in as many days. He thinks through what he’s been told and the reports he’s been shown as he carefully massages soap through his hair before dropping his forehead against the steam-warmed tile to rinse.

He’s unwilling to give in to public opinion, no matter how negative it might be. It’s just words; together the Avengers can weather that storm. However, the possibility that his team might be in actual danger from some of the more radical individuals chills him to his bones. Heroes they might be, but Tony, Clint and Natasha have nothing to protect them but training, equipment, and luck, and Steve knows only too well how ineffective all of that can be against a single well-timed bullet. Some of the threat letters Hill has shown him, as well as the profiles of people SHIELD have actually intercepted who are willing to kill over perceived wrongs and willful misunderstanding of their intentions, had been more than credible.

Worse still are the opinions of some people who actually do matter. SHIELD says they can’t fix it, and can only perform damage control at best. The Army is petitioning for Bruce to be handed over, claiming that they own the Hulk weapon and that it needs to be kept in a secure location. The WSC have _never_ liked them, for reasons that have never been fathomable to Steve, and the arrest warrant for Clint, charging him with murder, sabotage and collaboration frightens Steve down to his soul. For now they seem willing to accept that the warrant was lost, but Steve knows that the smallest infraction will see them upping their game. Tony’s spent years being pressured to hand over his suits and technology. There are threats on every side now, threats that Steve doesn’t know how to fight. He’s just a soldier, just a kid from Brooklyn. How can he stand against the politicians, the military, and the leaders of the free world?

Hill’s been helpful, talking him patiently through the legal jargon, ensuring that he fully understands the very real threats closing in on them. He has been told that Fury is busy fielding as much of this as he reasonably can, taking fire from the enemies that their carelessness has brought down on him. He had asked after Coulson just once. The look on Hill’s face, the quick headshake, enough to tell him everything he needs to know. Steve’s stomach drops to his boots knowing how deeply they must have disappointed their handler. The mistakes made when they moved into the tower were bad enough, but now there were these disastrous media appearances: Tony allowed to indulge in the worst of his excesses and in public; Bruce’s almost-incident after Clint and Natasha’s pasts had come to light.

It’s not what Hill wants, but Steve can only think of one way out of this. If they disband, disperse, no one will have any reason to come after them. They won’t be in New York, they’ll be able to quietly disappear. Whatever else may happen, on base it will be much harder to justify the need to take Clint into custody; he’ll be subject to internal affairs, and the SHIELD brass know what really happened. Additionally, Bruce will be safe from the sadism of a military that Steve used to believe in; the man knows how to hide.

It’s simple. It’s _obvious_. Steve _hates_ himself for being too much of a coward to make the call.  

He steps out of the shower, roughly towelling his hair. It’s a last ditch hope, but the only one he has. His last hope that something can be salvaged from this mess, that he won’t be abandoned in a world he doesn’t understand and that is completely unfamiliar again; his last hope of not being reduced to the kind of thug who longs for battle because that's the only time he can see his _family._ Maybe one of the others will have an idea, because he’s fresh out.

He pulls on a pair of jeans. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Can you have the others assemble downstairs, please? We need to talk.”

“Of course, Captain.”

Steve takes his time dressing. He knows that at the end of this meeting the Avengers will be finished. He’ll have to leave, too. There’s too much speculation about whether he can keep a monster and the notorious Tony Stark in check as it is, and he can’t ask the others to give up their home and lose nothing himself. At the end of this meeting he won’t even have Tony. Maybe, if they are very discrete, he can still see him occasionally.

The weight of that knowledge drags him down as he chooses a shirt and buttons it as slowly as possible, spending minutes longer than he usually does combing and re-combing his hair, savouring the time he has left as an Avenger.

“The rest of the team is waiting for you, Captain,” JARVIS says eventually as he gazes blankly into empty space.

“What? Oh, hmmm. Thank you, JARVIS.”

He takes the stairs instead of the elevator. With his long legs and super stamina it only takes a few seconds longer, but on the brink of losing everything, every second of delay counts.

“We’re in the kitchen, babe,” Tony shouts as he opens the door.

Steve blanches, but what difference does it make now? “Sure,” he answers and follows the sound of low voices. He takes a second to stand in the doorway, studying them, taking them in. A mental picture to get him through the nights he’ll have to spend without them.

He has no doubt that Natasha and Clint, and most likely Bruce, know he’s there, but it is Tony who turns towards the door, starts slightly and aborts his burgeoning smile to narrow his eyes and frown. “Something wrong?”

Steve walks in and settles in his usual place, the only chair left. Thor pushes a mug towards him and he cups his hands around it, savouring the warmth against the feeling of ice in his chest. He has to force the words out. “There’s been a lot of bad press about us lately.”

Tony snorts, “No shit.”

“It’s uh…” Steve looks down briefly and then forces his gaze level, looking each one of them in the eye, “It’s caught the attention of the wrong people.”

Tony splutters something about how nothing in the papers ever means anything, that even good press is all too often warped. It’s Bruce who waves him quiet. “What do you mean, Steve?” he asks, taking his glasses off and beginning to polish them on the hem of his shirt.

“There’s speculation,” Steve admits quietly, “that we might be too dangerous to house as a group in the middle of the city. There’s a prevalent feeling that a superhero tower is setting itself up as a modern day Mount Olympus and that we are a threat to functioning modes of government. And it’s not just public opinion; people with the ability to come after us want us arrested and _tagged_ like _animals_ so they can be sure we are under control.”

“Ross,” Bruce says quietly, hands clenching on the table. Thor covers one of his hands with his own.

Steve nods. “Amongst others. This isn’t because of you, Bruce.”

“But I didn’t exactly help. I shouldn’t have - that reporter. But she was such a _bitch_ and the things she was saying about you two…” he nods at Clint and Natasha.

“Hey, I’d’ve done the same,” Tony says easily. He looks at Steve again, a wry smile touching the corner of his mouth. “And my drinking?”

Steve sighs. “Is being questioned on multiple fronts. 'Would you let a drunk drive a tank?' You’re a 'danger to yourself and others', you should be forced into rehab.” He keeps his voice flat, and Tony nods his head in short acknowledgment. They both know he fucked up.

Natasha reaches for Clint’s hand, and there is a brief awkward second where he fails to take it. Instead, she laces her fingers together on the table in front of her. “And we have always known SHIELD would disavow us if needs be.”

“The WSC wants you both investigated. There’s a warrant out for Clint.” Steve meets the archer’s eyes for a second before looking back at Natasha. “Collaboration.”

Natasha muffles something, a gasp or an exclamation. Clint’s grin widens like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

Tony reaches across the table, hands winding themselves in Bruce’s shirt, keeping him in his seat when he fidgets uneasily in place. His eyes and voice are steady. “So what’s the plan, Cap?”

Steve looks at his mug. “I don’t…” he whispers, before straightening his shoulders and pulling himself together. “The problem seems to be that we are our own autonomous unit. If we were…if we split up, disbanded the Avengers, agreed only to come together for problems that can’t be solved by conventional law enforcement, things like the Chitauri, no one would have any reason to-”

“No,” Tony’s voice is flat and final.

Steve looks at him and forces himself to look like Captain America instead of the hurt broken agony inside him. “I don’t want to either, Tony. If anyone can think of _anything_ …” he looks pleadingly around the table.

“I would not see any of you come to harm by the ruling forces of this world,” Thor says slowly, hand still over Bruce’s, “but I see no reason why you should be forced to give up what happiness and peace you have found either.”

“We can get diplomatic immunity for Thor,” Tony says, gaze turning inward, as it does when he’s thinking. “It’s not worth going after the Prince of Asgard, not when that could cause more gods to take up Loki’s cause and 'teach us our rightful place'.”

“My people would never-”

Tony silences him with a smile with too many teeth. “Keep that to yourself.” He looks around the table and his gaze lands on Steve. “You haven’t said anything about you. Sparing us?”

Steve shakes his head, “Nothing.” And doesn’t that just tear him up inside. He’ll be safe, and venerated as a hero, and his friends destroyed while he watches. “Not unless you count the fact that no one thinks I can be relied on to stop you all from doing whatever the hell you want,” he adds bitterly.

Tony nods, seemingly unoffended. “So, Steve’s safe too, particularly if we keep our relationship quiet. The wonder twins…SHIELD might disavow you, but anything else is just posturing. They can’t put you on trial because just think of all the things you’d say about them if sworn to tell the _whole truth_.”

“They don’t have to try us, Stark,” Clint grinds out.

“They can’t just quietly make you disappear, either. You’re Avengers; there’d be riots in the streets, and people would _notice_ if Captain America started talking about his mysteriously missing teammates. And no one can touch me. So that just leaves…”

Bruce closes his eyes, fear and humiliation aging him by at least a decade. “Me,” he whispers, “and Ross will-”

Tony leans forward. “Ross can’t get in here,” he says across the table, voice low and fast and intent. “He can’t get in here, and he can’t get you. You’re safer here than on the run and alone.”

“You’d harbour a fugitive, Tony?”

Tony looks frankly pleased at the idea. “Of course.”

“It’s nice of you to offer me such a _luxurious_ cage,” Bruce grits out.

Tony stills, and Thor’s grip tightens. “That isn’t what he meant,” Steve interjects.

Bruce sighs. “I know. But that’s still in essence what I am being offered. I am safe in this tower so in this tower I must stay. I don’t exactly want to be Rapunzel.”

Clint gives an ugly laugh and stands, chair scraping on the floor. “Well, that’s lovely, you lot can do whatever you want, but I’m going. I’m not about to spend the rest of my life in a hole.”

“Hawkeye!” Thor protests.

Steve says nothing. He can’t blame Clint. That exact fear is part of what led him to this conclusion, after all. It’s not that any of these threats are new, but before they had been abstract. Now, the threat is real.

“No,” Natasha says, and for a moment he thinks she’s talking to Clint, then her gaze sweeps around the table and she says it again. “No. I understand your fears, Steve, and it is a logical conclusion. But you haven’t given us all the information.”

Steve spreads his hands. “I wouldn’t hide anything from you. Not about this.”

“The Avengers Initiative is years of planning and more money and effort than even our pet genius-”

“Hey!”

“-can imagine. What is the official plan?”

“To weather the storm and hope for the best,” Steve looks up, fire in his eyes, “and I won’t risk you – _any_ of you – to chance like that.”

Natasha taps a finger on the table consideringly. “There’s more, Steve. There’s always more. What did Fury say?”

“I haven’t seen Fury.”

Natasha shakes her head impatiently. “Don’t be pedantic. What’s _Coulson’s_ plan, then? Tell me his exact words.”

“All Hill said was that she would protect us as long as she could, but that things didn’t look good. She’s meeting with a team of PR analysts tomorrow to see what positive spin they can put on the situation.”

“ _Hill_?” Natasha repeats.

Steve nods.

Natasha looks over and meets Clint’s eyes. He nods back at her and for a second they are in the perfect accord that defines them. “Then we’re definitely not disbanding. This is a power play that has nothing to do with us. This is about Coulson.”

“Are they sleeping together?” Tony asks. Steve opens his mouth to admonish him, but Tony shakes his head. “I’m not being prurient. If we’re caught in a power struggle, we need to know where the lines of loyalty are.” He turns back to Natasha. “Well?”

She screws up her face, looking younger than Steve has ever seen her look before. “Eurg. No!” Even Clint, who’s managed to alternate only between stoically disinterested and amused thus far, flinches and makes a disgusted face.

“You sure? Hill’s hot, if that’s your thing. And badass is _totally_ Agent’s thing. Have you seen the way he looks at Pepper?”

“Stop!” Natasha held a hand up, but not in threat, more like she’s trying to ward off Tony and his words. “I can’t even…no. Hill and Coulson are not, never have been, and never _will be_ doing _that_! And since you mentioned it, Coulson and Pepper are practically pure and chaste; their relationship is one of mutual respect and affection.”

Thor looks between the two agents, puzzled. “Why do you show such disgust, my friends? Surely the act of lovemaking is cause for song and celebration, and the Son of Coul is a mighty and worthy warrior. He deserves the paramour of his choosing. Both the Lady Hill and Lady Pepper would be lucky to welcome him into their beds.”

Clint puts his hands over his ears and starts humming. Natasha looks inches away from doing the same. The look on Tony’s face says that he sympathises, but is repressing that in favour of teasing the others. He grins at Natasha. “You know…I’ve never seen you make this many facial expressions.”

“Shut up.”

“No, come on, tell me. Why is this such a big deal to you?”

Natasha glares at him. “Your Dad knew your Auntie Peggy for a long timebefore your Mom was on the scene. Think _they_ ever got lonely?”

Tony scrunches his nose and looks horrified. “Ewwwwww! Why would you even-”

“Exactly!” Natasha says, folding her arms and smirking grimly.

“Focus, guys,” sighs Steve sensing the conversation is about to derail completely as Tony opens his mouth again. “Are you sure that Hill’s information is false?” he asks Natasha to bring them back on track.

“Maybe,” she shrugs, “maybe not. But I _am_ certain it’s been presented in such a way as to lead you to this conclusion. Hill has always been against the Initiative.”

Steve frowns and thinks over his interactions with Hill. “She’s always seemed helpful.”

“She’s a soldier. The Initiative happened, it’s her job to make it work, but she’s virulently pro-human, Captain.”

“Riiiiight,” Steve says slowly. “So are we.” He glances at Thor. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Thor rumbles and Natasha speaks over him.

“No, I mean she’s anti-meta. She’s opposed the Fantastic Four and the X-Men for years.”

Steve’s head spins. “But…I didn’t know.” He looks at Bruce. “I swear I didn’t know. I told her…If she’s working against us, then I helped, I told her…”

Tony reaches out and takes his hand. Steve squeezes back until Tony gasps in sudden pain and he abruptly relaxes his hold.

“She’s good at her job, Captain. It isn’t your fault,” Natasha says, terse and clipped, the Black Widow in the place of his friend. She puts her palms flat on the table and outlines clearly. “I don’t think this is about us, and I don’t think Hill will see any of us behind bars. She knows the Earth might need our protection. What she wants is to prove that she was right, that the Initiative will never be tolerated. This will discredit Coulson, and keep us all under tighter, government-sanctioned controls.”

Bruce shudders and closes his eyes again.

“We need to speak to Coulson.”

“He isn’t here,” Tony says, tapping on a tablet. “He’s in Ireland. Mission classified though, just give me a minute.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Black Widow says. “Just tell me when he gets back. We need someone who can take the game to Hill.”

Thor cracks his knuckles. “I can teach the Lady Hill the error of her ways. I am _extremely_ tired of treachery from within.”

“That would just prove her point, Thor,” Steve says, trying to soothe the demigod despite his own anger. “She wouldn’t have brought this to me until she was certain she had support. If you threaten her, all you do is show all of SHIELD that we are dangerous.” He meets the Black Widow’s gaze and she nods, giving him permission to make the decision. “Until we can speak to Coulson, this tower is on lockdown.”

“You’re…what? Grounding us?” Tony asks incredulously.

“Not literally. But just…keep a low profile. No stunts, Tony. I mean it.” He looks back at Bruce, who’s shaking continuously now. “We’re not caging you, Bruce. I swear. If, when this is done, you want to go, I’ll help you myself. But can you hold on, just until we can speak to Coulson? Just until we’re _sure_ there’s no other way?”

Bruce opens his eyes, and Steve is surprised to see they are still a deep brown. It’s not anger he’s feeling, just pure, undiluted terror. “Y-Yeah,” he agrees.

“And if that changes, you’ll tell us? You won’t just vanish?” Tony pushes.

“Yeah,” Bruce promises again.

“Alright then,” Tony glances briefly at Steve and squeezes his fingers one more time, before detangling and leaning towards Bruce, beginning to mutter technobabble at him until his shaking subsides.

“And you, Hawkeye?” Steve asks over Tony’s murmuring. “You’ll wait for Coulson?”

Clint sighs and looks around them all. He looks as destroyed as Bruce did a moment ago. “No,” he says, “No. I’m leaving. Now.”

The table falls silent. No one can look at Clint, Steve feels his world drop out from under him. He can’t look at Clint, looks instead at Natasha. Everyone else copies him. She ignores them all, looking intently at Clint for a long moment. When she looks back at Steve there is nothing on her face at all. “I’m staying.”

Steve can’t stand the emptiness in her eyes. He pushes to his feet, and offers his hand to Clint. “Well…good luck, Hawkeye.” The words sound hollow to his ears. He’s unsurprised when Clint snorts and shoulders past him.

He is surprised when the shorter man hesitates in the doorway. “I don’t care how bad it gets, I don’t care what invades. Don’t come looking for me. I’ll put an arrow in the throat of anyone who tries,” Clint says roughly, and without turning.

The kitchen feels too empty in his wake.


	13. Phil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.  
> Rating: PG-13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.  
> And yes, it seems that I was...over enthusiastic claiming that I would post weekly, but hey, I didn't leave you hanging for six months so I'm chalking it up to a win.

**13**

Phil is aware, the split second before he puts on the light in his darkened office, that there is someone else in the room. He shifts his files and briefcase to one hand, and his fingers clench over the handgun in its holster. Before he has time to draw it however, he recognises Clint’s familiar shape, curled in his usual place across two thirds of the small couch, and he pauses in the still semi-dark. He hasn’t seen much of the Avengers of late, but there have been whispers, rumours, one or two deeply coded messages from Romanov, but no contact at all from Clint - which is unusual. There were tests at one point: for dopplegangers, for mind-control. Clint had been bitingly sarcastic throughout, fury barely hidden, his barbs as well placed as his arrows.

Now though, as his eyes adjust to the dim light, Phil doesn’t see a puppet controlled by someone else who is seeking to do as much harm as possible with Clint’s form. He sees the terrified, angry boy he’d dragged into SHIELD with a bullet wound more than a decade ago. That boy had been as likely to bite the hand held out to him as take it; terrified to accept help and terrified of needing it, as his whole world spun out of control beneath him.

The Avengers – Romanov – cannot believe that Clint would hurt them because none of them knew him when that was Clint’s default setting. None of them were there when his first, last, and _only_ means of self-protection was to push away anyone who might want to get close, and do as much damage as possible in the process so that they never ventured near him again.

No double would come to his office to sleep on the worn cushions, huddled beneath a tattered leather jacket, instead of sleeping on the luxurious beds Stark has provided. The only value of such a thing is in a sneak attack. And Clint has, as always, slept peacefully in Phil’s presence; secure in the fact that Phil won’t hurt him, that Phil can defend himself should _Clint_ attack. Oh yes, Phil has long been familiar with the reasons Clint chooses his sofa for his naps.

He would like to turn around and leave him to his sleep. The last time he had seen Clint he’d been too pale, too terse, and the black circles under his eyes too pronounced; and that was weeks ago. Unfortunately, the folders in his arms really do need dealing with, and he needs access to the rest of his files as well. He’s been away too long and there are other Avengers to protect, not just Clint.

He permits himself a sigh, permits Clint another few seconds of easy rest, and readjusts the folders again to flick on the light. The result is instantaneous. Clint surges up like he has been stung, weapon already in hand, and the glare of the light throws his features into sharp relief. The calm greeting Phil had been planning is washed away as he catches sight of the wild look in Clint’s eyes and the barely-dried tracks on his cheeks. He has never known Clint to shed more than the occasional single tear. He has seen Clint through a dozen near-fatal wounds, the Beijing Incident, the deaths of trainees and friends and colleagues that’s far too frequent in this line of work, a memorable bout of food poisoning that had made _Phil’s_ stomach clench in sympathy, two Loki incidents and more fights with Romanov than he cares to recall. The marks of this obvious desolate sobbing on Clint's face stutters the breath in Phil's chest like no threat or wound or loss ever has.

Eyes as vigilant as always, Clint realises quickly what has drawn his attention. He drops the weapon to scrub at his cheeks, but doesn’t drop his eyes or blush. The clear weakness is not as shaming as it ought to be and it’s Phil who chooses to give him as much privacy as he can. He watches the gun as it drops, and his eyes snag on the objects Clint was curled around. A book, a notepad, and a viciously chewed pen.

“What are you working on?” he asks, and is grateful for the hours spent perfecting his 'Agent Coulson' blandness that reveals nothing.

Clint chokes like he’s trying to speak, turning puce from the effort and then sighs and hands over the notebook, resignation writ large on his face.

Clint’s style of note-taking has never been Phil’s. Instead of anything resembling coherency, the first dozen sheets of paper are covered with random disjointed and misspelled words. It means nothing to him, and Clint obviously knows it because his face is turned away, frustration creasing it. Phil puts his folders on his desk and comes to sit beside him, feigning unawareness at the way Clint tenses at his proximity. He watches the archer bite into his lip, clench his fists tightly and rasp out, “You going to try and comfort me, Coulson? I know you’ve always been hot for me, but isn’t taking advantage of my current state a bit tacky?”

Phil doesn’t rise to the bait. He’d never take advantage of his position as handler with anyone, and they both know it. He cocks his head slightly instead. “What do you think _trying_ to push me away is going to achieve?”

Clint gives a shadow of his usual smirk. “I’m hoping you’ll take my insubordination out of my ass, sir. I’ve been waiting for you after all.”

“Don’t you have any more original insults? I heard all of these when I first brought you in.”

“Huh. I must be slipping. How about this one? Your schoolboy infatuation for Steve is pathetic. I can, at least, try to understand the comic book geeks. Alright, they must lead sad, lonely existences to get so hung up on the fictitious, but at least they have a _hero_ to idolise. You knowthat Steve is as capable of cruelty as the next man. You _know_ he’s a hypocrite and bully and most likely using the issues Stark’s daddy planted in his head to force Stark into his bed, and you _still_ worship the ground he walks on. Is it because you can’t accept that you were wrong about him, Coulson? Or is it because you wish you were in Tony’s place? Wish it was you who was allowed to suck his cock every night? I’m sure you’d make it _good_. The desperate ones always do. Shame you’re not his type: old, balding, _boring_ -” His head snaps back with Phil’s fist.

Phil looks at his own hand with slight amazement. He’d never intended to _hit_ Clint, isn’t even conscious of making the decision to do so. At least it’s stopped the litany of bile. He watches as Clint prods at his split lip with his tongue in an exploratory way. Phil’s seen violence, dealt plenty of it, and he’s far from squeamish about blood, but his stomach rolls at the flare of gratitude in Clint’s eyes.

“That’s nice, Coulson, beating your subordinates. Isn’t there a form I can fill out for this?”

“Be my guest,” Phil says with a calm he doesn’t feel. “You are more than welcome to report my behaviour.” He looks down again at the paper still in his hands, eyes darting over Clint’s chicken scratch scrawl. There is something here if he can only-

He hears the eye roll in Clint’s voice when he speaks again. “Oh yes, I’d forgotten your weird obsession with me. And Nat too, I guess. Tell me, Coulson. Is it because we’re the only two agents you haven’t managed to get killed yet?”

“What does blood-bond both ways mean?” Phil asks, ignoring the vicious words completely.

Clint’s words cut off and he makes the hacking, choking noise again. Phil does look at him this time, a slight edge of alarm on his face, but Clint just goes silent and shakes his head, plucking at the cushions. He shrugs loosely. “Doesn’t matter. Not like _you_ could help me anyway.” His too-seeing eyes wander absently over the room, gazing anywhere but at Phil, and land on the folders on the desk. “You having a late night?”

It’s a question Clint has asked hundreds of times; a question always followed with offers of coffee, or help, or takeout, sometimes admonishments to delegate more, or to at least sleep a little. It’s a question from Clint that Phil has never had any hesitation in answering. “Doesn’t matter,” he echoes. He remembers Clint when he was like this, but that was a long time and many layers of friendship ago. He doesn’t want to see what wounds and insecurities Clint can pick at now. He’s too well trained to give any sort of enemy ammunition against him.

Clint doesn’t need any more.

Clint leans back against the battered couch, stretching like an irreverent teenager. “What am I saying? Of course you are. You don’t have anyone to go home to, do you, Coulson?”

“That’s enough,” Phil says, quiet and calm.

Clint blinks at him, all false wounded innocence. “Sorry, sir. Did you want me to keep pretending we were friends? I thought you’d have figured I’d moved on to bigger and better things now. I don’t need you anymore.”

Needing to look at something that’s not the badly masked desperate expression on Clint’s face (that's at such odds with his words), Phil looks once again at the pages in his hands. “You’re compromised, Barton.”

Clint laughs meanly. “Am I? Not according to your tests.”

Coulson’s eyes flick over the words. He still doesn’t know exactly what’s happening, but he can pick out several words: magic, blood, silencing spell, thrall, a repeated capital L written with such force the paper is torn in places. A quick glance to the side tells him that the book Clint was reading is his own book of Norse Mythology, a 'get well' present from Erik when the information that the rumours of his death had been exaggerated was spilled by Thor. “Loki’s done something to you, something you can’t talk about.”

“You’re so desperate to be around me that you’d rather believe I’m enchanted than that I’ve just moved on? That’s sweet, Coulson. I’d no idea I meant so much to you. I guess…” he turns to Phil slightly, spreading his knees wider. “I guess you can earn my company if you want. I’m willing to take a few minutes to verify that your mouth is as good as it must be to have earned someone as average as you such a high-ranking position.”

A spike of anger jumps in Coulson’s stomach and he feels the muscles in his jaw twitch. That’s low, and completely unnecessary. He finds that his guilt over popping Clint in his smart mouth has evaporated; hell, after the number of times Clint’s mouth has pissed Nick off, he’s probably in the running for a commendation – one he might actually _accept_ now. “Let me help you,” he says evenly. His hand lands on Clint’s shoulder.

The wild look comes back into Clint’s eyes and he stands, shoving Phil away with none of the finesse or skill he’s capable of, but enough force to send him to the floor. “Let me _go_. You can’t fight him anyway, so what good does your help do me? Just _let me go_.”

Phil sits up carefully, but doesn’t rise. “No. No. I don’t care how much of a vicious little bastard you are, Barton. I will _not_ let you walk out of here with no one following.”

Clint sags like his strings have been cut. “You can’t fight him. You can’t help me.” There’s no anger and cruelty in his voice now, just despair.

Phil risks climbing to his feet, and after another moment of Clint still standing motionless, risks moving into his space. “Maybe Thor-”

“ _Maybe_ ,” Clint laughs hollowly. “Sure, and maybe not. And any tampering with the bond will turn me into Loki’s personal assassin. Anyway, I left the Avengers.”

“What?” Phil isn’t usually reduced to ineloquent exclamations, but this time nothing else fits. “What happened to _bigger and better things_?”

“It was time,” Clint answers brusquely. He’s still not meeting Phil’s eyes.

“And Romanov?”

“It wasn’t working. I’m the love ‘em and leave ‘em type, remember?”

Phil is about 17% sure he’s in an alternate universe right now. “What changed?” he asks warily.

Clint shrugs. “It’s just…time to go.”

“ _No_!” Phil says again. He looks away to gather himself. “You’re silenced somehow, I understand that, but tell me what you can.”

The stubborn, locked jaw expression on Clint’s face is not magic. That is Clint’s favourite _make me_ expression and it’s all his own. “No!” his flat refusal an echo of Phil’s. “No. The last time you went up against Loki _he killed you_. There’s nothing any of you can do and I’m not going to put you in danger again.”

“Then why are you here?” Phil all but shouts.

“Because you’re not supposed to be! Stark said-”

Phil gives him a mocking half-smile and doesn’t point out that for someone desperate to go it alone he was willing to put an awful lot of faith in his – ex – teammate’s assurance of Phil’s absence. “ _I’m_ not supposed to be here? It’s my office, Barton.”

“That’s _Agent_ Barton to you, Coulson,” Clint says mulishly and Phil pretends not to notice how Clint’s hand clenches involuntarily in counterpoint to his own with the words. When he doesn’t respond except to give Clint what the younger agent – normally – affectionately calls the _really, Barton?_ eyebrow, Clint huffs and grits out, “You’re supposed to be off jumping through whatever hoops Hill’s set for you this week.”

The muscle jumps again in Phil’s jaw. It gives him no pleasure to know that his assets know that he’s been reduced to reacting to Hill because he has no idea what she’s doing. He doesn’t allow himself to dwell on that fact. “So you came here?”

Clint shrugs. “No one’s looking for me here. And no one on base would have any hesitation in taking _The Amazing Sucker for Mindcontrol_ down.”

Phil nods in understanding. “You think the others would hesitate to stop you.”

“I knew you had the book I wanted. I’m just finishing my research, then I’m in the wind.”

Phil’s gaze drops briefly back to the book. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I never do. I’ve looked.”

“Then _let me help you_.”

Clint growls in his throat, a feral sound that raises the hairs on the back of Phil’s neck. “You can’t, and Loki will kill you if you try.”

Phil feels his own jaw set stubbornly. “There is no one in that tower that wouldn’t take that risk.”

“No one in the tower owes me anything.”

“Do you really think that changes what they’d do for you?”

Clint closes his eyes and breathes deeply through what looks like a bout of nausea, or another onrush of tears. “He’ll make me do it.” His lids flutter open, blue grey eyes locking onto Phil’s as he begs quietly, “Please don’t let him make me do that. Please just let me walk out of here.”          

“Barton-”

“ _Please_. It’s not like I’m of any possible use to you. I’m compromised _again_.”

“What does blood-bond both ways mean?” Phil pushes, insistent. He can _feel_ that it’s important.

Clint sighs and struggles with his words for a few moments. He’s shaking before he manages to find a combination that he can force out around Loki’s silencing spell. “That it’s like Harry Potter’s scar.”

“You can feel him too?”

Clint doesn’t even try to talk this time, just nods curtly.

“And he probably has control of it,” Phil mutters, thinking aloud now. “Loki understands magic far better than we do, but if we could do something shocking enough on this end, it-” he stops, eyes widening.

It’s too late. Clint has never had any difficulty following his thoughts.

“It would hurt him too,” Clint breathes.

“Barton,” Phil says sharply in his best _don’t you dare, agent_ voice. Time slows and the air thickens to a treacle like density, and Phil reaches for Clint, to forcibly restrain him if needs be. The archer is too quick, twisting out of his grip like an eel and darting for the door.

In his breast pocket, his phone rings, breaking the thick silence and Phil reaches for it out of instinct. “Coulson,” he answers, already knowing why he’s being called in the small hours of the morning.

“Phil.”

It’s Romanov’s voice.

“We need a Hulkbuster containment unit. Loki’s on the roof of Avenger’s Tower.”


	14. Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

Natasha sets aside the knife she is methodically sharpening at the rap on the door of her apartment. For a second, she stays where she is, surveying the armoury that she has spread out around her. Cataloguing and cleaning everything she has accumulated over recent weeks is a job she has been putting off for too long. There is a second, slightly more tentative knock, and she finds herself analysing it out of habit. It’s not an emergency; if it were, her pager would have activated and if that failed it wouldn’t be a knock at all, but more a pounding. An enemy wouldn’t give her the courtesy of knocking. Nor would- some reckless people might just let themselves in.

Of the rest of the team, Banner always knocks on doors like he’s embarrassed to be doing so. Thor often – albeit accidently – takes them off their hinges so now tends to announce himself verbally. She is distracted for a brief moment wondering whether Thor could knock on these doors without that concern. The whole tower is supposed to be Hulk-proof after all. Steve, she thinks, as she rises from her casual lotus position, putting her whetstone down as she glides towards the door, wouldn’t have knocked twice. He’d be too afraid that being so demanding would be rude. So that only leaves-

“I know you’re in there, Romanov. And I don’t want to see you crying any more than you’d open the door to me if you were, but I drew the short straw and Steve won’t let me go to my workshop until you verify that you’re not…I don’t know…angrily crossing 'Mrs. Natasha Barton' off all your notebooks or whatever.”

He stumbles back a pace, an amusing combination of surprise and indignation on his face when she opens the door. “Why are you here, Tony?” she asks serenely. “It’s late.”

“I’m…Ironically, it was decided – without me present, I hasten to add – that I was the best person to,” he gives a theatrical shudder, “comfort you.”

She raises an eyebrow, and notes with distant pleasure that Tony doesn’t even flinch in the face of an expression which has been known to reduce level three – really, SHIELD needs to up its standards – agents to tears. “Why would I need comforting?”

That, Tony does blink at. “You know, I’m a master at denial, but this is taking it far even for me. You haven’t bumped your head in the last two hours have you?”

She sighs, and takes pity on him. “This is far from the first time Clint has had a tantrum. He’s hiding out in Coulson’s office. I’ll go and fish him out when I feel less like stabbing him in the face.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “You sure? He’s been a dick lately. And, in the kitchen, that sure seemed like he was breaking up with you?”

“You’re the 'most comforting' how, exactly?”

He shrugs and rolls his eyes. “Beats me. I had a traumatic break up once? Honestly, I put this down to the fact that Thor is literally _drinking_ ice cream and is stillon skype to Jane making her swear not leave him, Steve is pretty much _terrified_ that you might be crying, and Bruce is not above using the Hulk as a reason not to do anything he doesn’t want to do. I’m the least comforting person ever. I was just last to say ' _not it'_.”

Natasha isn’t the sort of person who giggles, but she does tilt her lips in a very slight smile. “It’s touching you all care.”

“We care. We care that 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' probably applies doubly to you, and I _just_ finished decorating this tower.”

Natasha folds her arms across her chest. “So…when you’re upset you get to blow things up, but I don't?”

“Landlord’s prerogative,” Tony grins. “But hey, I have a black Amex and Pepper. You can 'retail therapy' to your heart’s content. In Paris if you want.”

She huffs out something that might be a laugh and shakes her head. “I’m fine.”

“And Clint’s at SHIELD?” For the first time, a hint of vulnerability creeps into Tony’s eyes.

Natasha doesn’t love. She thinks it might be nice to be able to worry about Clint even after what he’s done. It might be easier to sleep at night if she knew that she was at least good enough to be able to do that instead of harbouring this corrosive desire to peel Clint’s face off and feed it to him. Whatever his problem is, there is _no_ excuse for acting like a prima donna teenager, for _leaving_. She and Clint have screamed and sworn at each other, left bruises and blood and broken bones in the wake of arguments, but they never _leave_. Still, she lets no hint of the utter black rage bottled inside of her slip into her voice as she reassures Tony. “He’s _always_ in Coulson’s office after an argument.” She doesn’t say that _before_ Coulson’s office was a mere corridor away, still within shouting distance.

“You still think it isn’t Clint?”

He looks so hopeful that Natasha hates to disillusion him. “No…I think it is. Anything using Clint to tear us apart could have done a lot more damage than simply walking out.” She tries on a smile and a soothing tone. “Don’t worry. I’ll beat whatever his problem is out of him, and then beat him more for not just _telling_ us.”

Tony backs away, raising his hands a little. “Ooookay, Crazy Lady. Just for the record, Clint is way braver than me. I would never date you.”

The sultry bedroom eyes she immediately responds with make Tony’s breath speed up. “Really? Shall I tell Clint he’s a _bigger_ man than you’ll ever be?”

Tony smiles, wide and unfeigned and pleased with himself. “Being a coward scored me Captain America. I’m pretty sure I’m winning.” Whatever else he might have said is cut off as something in his pocket beeps insistently. Tony fishes out a phone and uses a grimy index finger to flick through a couple of screens. When he looks back at her, his eyes are still alight, with determination now, and his expression is grim. “Agent checked in at SHIELD. Tonight.”

“When?” she snaps.

Tony grimaces and keeps flicking through the phone. “Earlier. This isn’t quite in real time. The-” there’s half a giggle in his voice as he admits, “the security SHIELD’s got at the moment is really good. I’m having trouble bypassing the firewalls to get into the server. And how many places does Agent have to swipe his card? Really? He’s not some nobody, is he? Within the last hour? I’ll see if I can narrow it down.”

Natasha glances at her watch. It’s late, but not unusually so for Coulson. “Phone,” she snaps her fingers at Tony and he raises an eyebrow but drops the phone into her hand without comment. Phil deserves fair warning that Clint’s probably/almost certainly/maybe in his office.

Before she can do more than curl her fingers around the slick casing however, every alarm in the tower goes off. Tony’s phone throws up a stylised A and begins bleating 'Avengers Assemble'.

“Fuck’s sake,” Tony mutters, “Do the supervillains in this city never fucking sleep?”

Natasha pockets the phone without thinking, already darting into her room, hand reaching for the suit she keeps ready at all times, eyes roving over the laid out armoury, selecting what she wants as she sheds her oversized T-shirt and pulls the suit quickly on. “See you there,” she says quickly to Tony, who curses again and sprints away, already barking instructions at JARVIS for a suit to meet him on the roof.

She’s still zipping up her suit as she skids into the main entry way and sees Steve pulling the cowl down. “Quinjet?” she asks evenly. She’s as capable a pilot as- As any SHIELD agent.

“No point,” Steve says grimly. “Whatever it is, it’s right on top of us.”

Tony’s voice crackles over the comms. “Guys? Have you stopped to play video games? Get to the roof. _Now_.” His words are broken off by the unmistakable sound of an impact, and the armour scratching along stone.

“Iron Man?” Steve demands, already racing for the elevator, Natasha on his heels. “What is it?”

Tony makes an unpleasant wheezing sound and manages, “Our favourite adopted Frost Giant,” before there’s another impact and a laugh that raises the hairs on the back of Natasha’s neck.

Steve stabs a finger onto the elevator call button with far more force than necessary and completely needlessly as JARVIS already has an elevator ready for him. “I am not in the mood for this,” he growls. “I’ve had enough of that son of a _bitch_.”

“Language, Cap,” Tony gasps in Natasha’s ear and she barely restrains the wince.

“Focus, Shellhead,” Steve admonishes, shifting his shield impatiently in his hands.

“You’re right,” Natasha says crisply. “Playing tag with Loki is getting us nowhere. We try and take him down and he disappears when he starts losing.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Capture.”

She pulls out Tony’s phone and dials a number that she knows by heart. “Phil. We need a Hulkbuster containment unit. Loki’s on the roof of Avenger’s Tower.” She doesn’t even wait for an answer, hanging up as the elevator finally comes to a stop and the doors slide open. She’s only inches behind Steve as they leap into the fray.

Loki is throwing Tony around like the Hulk with a ragdoll. Natasha can see him doing his best to get the repulsors powered up to get some movement of his own, to be able to get out of Loki’s way, but every powerful blow from the demi god makes them sputter out uselessly. Loki is _toying_ with him and that makes Natasha’s heart clench as it hits her again just how _powerful_ Loki is. The thought doesn’t get much traction as she’s far too distracted by her blood boiling that Loki _dare_ treat one of her – precious few – friends in that way. Steve simply gives a growl worthy of Hulk himself and throws himself at Loki.

Loki hadn’t even noticed their arrival – _idiot, he knew there were si- five of them_ – and Steve bodyslams him. They both fall back a little at the impact, and Loki’s customary smirk makes an appearance on his face. Natasha keeps him in view even as she hurries to Tony’s side. In armour, her pulling on his arm does little to help him stand, but he rises anyway. “Nice of you to join me,” he says caustically.

“Admit it, Man of Iron,” Loki says, his tone teasing and light, “you thought for a moment I was right. You thought maybe they _weren’t_ coming.”

This time it is Thor who makes the furious sound. “You impune our honour in this way, Loki? For this, I will see you in Asgard’s darkest dungeon.”

Loki pouts affectedly. “Truly, brother. You need to make a decision and stick to it. First, I am barely worthy of being allowed to spend my days with you and your,” he sneers, “ _Warriors Three_ , and then I am your beloved little brother and all you want to do is help me and forgive me, and now you wish to cage me like a common criminal.”

There is a wealth of sadness on Thor’s face as he swings Mjolnir. “I love you, brother. I will always do so. I will not, however, suffer you to harm innocents, nor to threaten my friends.”

The static discharge in the air makes Natasha’s hair begin to stand on end, and she holds her position except to pull on Tony’s arm and get him to move back a little. If Thor can keep Loki distracted – and there are few people that she has ever seen get under Loki’s skin like Thor does – then maybe they will be able to utilise the Hulkbuster containment unit and her plan will work. Loki too is eying the crackling hammer, lightning drawn inexorably at the god’s call.

“You may not have a choice, _brother_ ,” Loki threatens. There is a crack of thunder, and Loki waves his arm. “Can you truly waste your time with me when there are so many of _them_?”

“The city is full of Lokis!” Steve calls out.

Hulk abruptly bursts through one of the doors and charges at Loki.

“Hulk, no!” cries Steve. “We need to capture him to stop him making copies!” He grabs uselessly at Hulk’s arm just as the green Leviathan crashes into Loki and all three of them tumble off the side of the roof.

“Steve!” Tony shouts, taking to the air and pushing forward.

There is no answer.

“I’ll get him,” Natasha says, “We need you and Thor on the copies.”

“I need to-”

She grabs his shoulders and shakes him, unafraid of the suit that’s powerful enough to destroy her as surely as the Hulk. “I will get him, he is fine. He has Hulk to look after him. You and Thor are our two fliers and our heavy hitters. There are civilians out there; we need you to deal with it.”

“The Widow is correct, shield-brother.”

The faceplate hides his expression, but Natasha knows, from too many missions where people she cared about lay bleeding due to their own _idiocy_ , that it is agonised. “Fine,” he says crisply, and follows Thor into the sky.

*

When they’ve gone, Natasha activates her comm. “Captain?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t waver, but despite her brave words to Tony, Natasha can’t deny that she’s afraid there will be no answer.

Relief crests through her when a breathless, but not pained voice answers. “’M fine. Landed on Hulk. Loki’s gone though. And with all the copies, he could be anywhere.”

“We’ll get him,” Tony’s voice crackles over the line. “I’m done with this bastard. I’m going to mash him into paste and then I’m going to breed a monster specifically designed to _eat_ the paste.”

“I’m fine,” Steve says again, reassuring Tony before he can begin a hysterical rant.

“You’re an idiot! You _grabbed the Hulk in full rampage_. I mean, what did you think that was going to achieve? Of course all that happened was you dragged along. I realise I’m the genius, but surely that’s obvious to anyone who’s not riding the short bus.”

There’s a pause. “Not my best plan,” Steve concedes, “but maybe analysis can wait until we’re not in combat?”

“Fine,” Tony says sulkily, “but don’t think I’ll forget. I have a lot of great material to draw on for a really impressive ‘I’m Not Angry Just Disappointed in your Reckless Behaviour’ speech.”

Natasha actually hears the wince. “Fair enough.”

Since everything seems to be fine, she takes a moment to survey the scene from the top of the tower. Hulk is smashing as many Lokis as he can lay his hands on, as are Thor and Iron Man at the other side of the block, and Captain America is moving – with a slight limp, she’ll have to make sure medical sees him later – towards a knot of Lokis terrorising a group of what looks like college students. It’s Loki’s M.O; nothing but chaos as far as the eye can see.

“Anyone see a pattern?” she asks, optimistically.

“What, like a respawning portal?” Tony demands and she watches Iron Man blast another Loki full in the chest so that it disappears in a puff of green smoke. “Sorry, no. They’re popping up all over the place.”

Natasha bites at her lip. She’s useless up here. This position is- It doesn’t suit her talents. “Can anyone take a second to come and pick me up?” she asks.

There isn’t a noise behind her, nor a supernatural cold spot, but years of training have taught her to feel the difference in atmosphere and she whirls around to find a Loki far too close. She only just manages to dodge the blow. Instinct takes over after that and she lashes out, but it’s like punching a wall, like punching Thor. It’s pointless. She flips over the Loki, shooting her Widow’s Bite into the vulnerable side of his face as she does so, and kicking out at the back of his knees.

The Loki hisses, finches, and rubs the side of his face as he lurches away from her. “You’ll pay for that, girl!” he sneers and takes a pace forward.

The arrow passes so close that the fletching brushes Natasha’s hand, opening a shallow stinging cut on the skin there, but it imbeds in Loki’s shoulder. He makes a sound and stumbles back again, hand clutching around the shaft where it is sunk into his shoulder. He doesn’t disappear though. “I think the real one is up here,” Natasha announces into the comm. Before she can say anything else, there are footsteps behind her; loud, angry footsteps that she would recognise anywhere.

“We need to talk, Loki,” Clint says, voice diamond hard.

“Little Bird,” Loki coos, “I’ve missed you.” Loki reaches for him and Clint holds his ground, eyes boring into Loki’s, but Natasha sees the glint of the knife Loki has palmed and grabs Clint, dragging him backwards, even as she unhooks an explosive from her belt. Natasha hates to use explosives. They’re crude, unsophisticated, _obvious -_ but sometimes the obvious works.

“Down,” she shouts, and her fingers slip out of Clint’s in the blast.

*

Natasha finds her feet quickly, the concussive blast of the grenade having taken her out for only a moment. She flicks a strand of hair out of her face with a practiced flick of her head and pushes forward, through the still-hovering cloud of dust and grit. The roof is uneven under foot, jagged chunks of masonry making the way treacherous. She soldiers on, grimly determined, fury pulsing through her. She is so _done_ with this.

In the centre of the cloud are two shadowy figures. She speeds up. Clint’s voice cracks like a whip, it would have been lost in the rushing air, but it comes clear through the comm channel. “Don’t come any closer, Nat.”

She stops by instinct, and her eyes lock onto the shimmer in the air surrounding the figures, bathing them in a greenish glow.

“It’s a forcefield; it’ll burn you.” Clint explains brusquely, never taking his eyes off the target.

She hisses, and fingers the handle of her weapon, frustration making her skin feel a size too small, and comes to a stop. The wind buffets at her; it would be tearing at her clothes if there was so much as a spare fold of fabric. Her hair streams out behind her. She feels an eerie sensation of seeing something unnatural as she realises that Loki seems untroubled, his own locks lying flat and smooth on his shoulders. She edges closer, as close as she dares to the hazy green. With the wind, she shouldn’t be able to hear anything, but her comm is still in her ear.

“And what are you planning to do, My Hawk? You can’t stop me.” She sees the god smirk, wicked and cold. “Or are you here to bargain?”

Clint doesn’t flinch, but she sees him straighten minutely. Privately, very privately, she thinks Loki has a point. Clint’s bow is across his back, quiver empty. Other than the pistol at his hip, he’s unarmed. “I want out, Loki. I want you to release me from this blood-bond _shit_ you’ve got going on.”

Frozen, unable to take her eyes from the scene, Natasha’s brow furrows. Blood-bond?

Loki doesn’t seem confused. He laughs, musical. “Why should I? It pleases me to know I can call on my most loyal soldier anytime I desire.”

Habit bites back the growl in Natasha’s throat as some pieces click into their very uncomfortable places. _This_ is why Clint has been acting so strange. It’s stupid of him to think that he could have made her distrust him, made _her_ leave, but she is forced to admit, if only to herself, that she wouldn’t have acted any differently. She is going to kill Loki. Given half a chance, she is going to rip his spine out through his nose.

Clint smiles, the expression brittle on his face but jaw firm. He draws the gun, thumbing back the hammer.

Natasha holds herself still by sheer force of her intractable will, terrified of distracting Clint from whatever his plan is, but she can’t stop the tiny sound when he levels the barrel not at Loki, but at his own temple.

The god, who had been mocking him about the inability of the mortal weapon to do him any damage, stops laughing abruptly.

Clint’s voice is perfectly steady, completely level. “I’ll do it. You know I’ll do it.”

Loki affects a mocking expression, but to Natasha’s practised eye it looks forced. “You will not, Little One. You have not fallen so far. And why? It is because you know that this world is _real_. There will be no waking up.”

The wind is icy and Natasha blames it for the full body shudder which rips through her. She had always assumed that _Loki_ had killed Clint, allowing him to wake. The mistake, and the knowledge, terrifies her.

Clint’s expression doesn’t change. “I thought it was real.”

Natasha cannot detect a single hint of a bluff on his face.

“I’ll do it, before I allow you to control me. Before I let you make me hurt people I care about again, I’ll put a bullet in my brain, Loki.” There’s a raw honesty in his voice, as though he simply sees no point in lying.

“And why should I care about one less Midgardian? One less Avenger?”

“Well,” Clint’s brittle, icy smile becomes genuinely, if grimly, amused, “I’ve been doing some research on this blood-bond thing. It’s like a link, we’re _connected_ through it. If I die, you’ll at least feel it. It’ll hurt you, weaken you, enough for the others to be able to take a shot.”

Loki’s tongue flicks out, wetting his lips thoughtfully. “Oh, Little Bird. You truly think your death will affect me enough to make me _vulnerable_? You are nothing to me. Watching you harm yourself though, I would wager that it makes your _bitch_ vulnerable. I’ll rip her arms off while she sobs over your lifeless body.”

Clint’s eyes don’t turn to her. He knows better than to look away. “Nat understands. She understands why I have to do this.”

He’s wrong.

Loki’s eyes narrow, and his voice snaps out, angrier than Natasha has ever heard him. “It is _pointless_. It won’t _work_.”

“I can’t help but notice, you’re trying very hard to convince me not to.”

“I’m the god of _lies_ , Archer. Do you really think I can’t make you think whatever I wish you to think? I am granting you a favour by trying to spare you. I don’t have to, and I have no need to…but still, you are my favourite and I don’t wish to see you come to harm. You should be kissing my feet in thanks.”

“You wish.”

“Or maybe her,” Loki turns to Natasha and his voice cuts clearly through the driving wind as though it isn’t there at all. “Agent Romanov? Would _you_ like to thank me for my mercy in sparing your lover?”

Before Natasha can answer, Clint barks out. “Hey, look at me, Loki. I want this bond removed. You have ten seconds.”

“You are willing to kill yourself, even knowing it won’t hurt me?”

Clint glares stonily at him. “Ten. Nine.”

“Clint-” Natasha says, and stumbles forward another pace, brought up short at an inhumanly strong arm around her waist.

She turns, already fighting. Sometimes she can beat Steve on the sparring mat because she is fast and flexible and used to taking out opponents several times her size. Like this, pinned already, unforgivably unaware that there was anyone behind her, she has no chance. She does her best and Steve grunts when her elbow embeds in his midriff, head snapping back when she hits him in the eye, but he doesn’t let go.

“Natasha! Natasha! _Widow_!”

She stops, panting, still twisting to get away from the low ragged voice at her ear.

“You can’t-” his voice chokes off. “You can’t get through Loki’s shield. You can’t-” _do anything._

“It’s _fucking magic_ ,” Tony spits abruptly over the comm line, and Natasha realises that he, too, is behind her. He must have given Steve a lift up here. “There’s no technology, nothing I can do to disrupt it, and Thor’s pinned down over on 47th. I’ll go, try and blast him a gap, get him up here but-”

“Go,” Natasha says, and is humiliated by how raw and desperate her voice sounds. “Just go.”

Tony doesn’t answer, just speeds off. Steve pulls her closer, restraining or hugging. Either way, she stands, stiff as a mannequin in his arms, eyes fixed on Clint and Loki, still in their furious stand-off.

“Three,” Clint’s voice is counting steadily. Natasha watches his finger tighten on the trigger. “Two. O-”

“Wait.”

Both she and Steve relax at the stern command. Clint’s hand flexes slightly, and there is no sound of a shot, but he doesn’t lower the weapon. He raises an eyebrow, waiting.

“I will relinquish my claim to you, Archer, but it is not an easy task. Someone must be willing to spill blood to buy you from me.”

“Me,” Natasha’s speaking almost before Loki has stopped. She beats Steve’s identical offer by a clear second. She might be furious with Clint, but there is little she wouldn’t do for him.

Loki gives her an ironic head tilt of acknowledgement before fixing his gleaming gaze back on Clint. “And it will hurt. It will be agonising.”

Clint’s jaw clenches. “That’s fine. Just get rid of it.”

He gets a mocking bow as well. “As you wish.”

He waves his hand, and the greenish glow fades instantly away. Clint takes a step backwards and towards them, before finally lowering his pistol from his head. His arm is shaking. He gives Natasha a loaded look, but doesn’t ask her if she’s sure. Instead, he flips the gun in his hand, and hands it, stock first, to Steve. “If anything goes wrong, if he‘s lying, you put a bullet in me. A fatal one.”

“Clint-”

“You promise me this, Steve. You promise me this and you _mean_ it, or I’ll shoot myself right now.”

Steve swallows and touches his ear piece. Tony’s obviously talking to him on a private line. “All right.” His voice is dry.

“You mean it?”

“…Yeah. Yeah, I’ll…I promise.” He wrenches his eyes off Clint to glare at Loki, “But if you make it a necessity, you’d better find somewhere to run and hide, Loki, because I will _hunt_ you and make you regret it.”

“I have no plans to forget my part in this bargain, Captain. You have no need to fear.”

He beckons, and Natasha takes Clint’s hand as she steps close.

“You are willing to buy him with blood?”

Natasha blinks her acceptance. “Yes.”

Loki takes her free hand, turning it palm up and scoring a deep gash in it with his dagger. Natasha doesn’t flinch, keeping her eyes on Loki’s face all the while. Blood wells immediately at the edges of the wound, spilling, dripping red. Loki dips two fingers in it, and smearing the red over Clint’s face. “And you, Little One. You are content for my claim to transfer to her, content to be bound to her?”

It is as close to a wedding vow as either of them are likely to get. Clint squeezes her fingers and doesn’t look at her. “Yes.”

The god’s smile gives the impression he knows what Natasha is thinking. She wonders if Clint is thinking the same. “You understand that it will hurt?” he continues, soft and mocking and delighted by the fact.

“Yes,” Clint answers. “I’m ready.”

Loki lifts Clint’s other hand, placing it in Natasha’s bloody one. He raises a sneering eyebrow. “I did not say the pain would be yours.”

Clint’s eyes widen and he’s just a second too late to catch Natasha when she crumples with a groan that she can’t quite silence. Instantly, Steve’s hands are on her waist, holding her up, and, with a thoughtlessly possessive growl, Clint grabs her from him, wrapping himself around her, smearing them both with the blood still oozing from her hand. “How long?” Clint demands.

Loki shrugs, examining his nails carelessly, “Five minutes. Six. Perhaps longer.”

Steve steps forward, one hand tightening around his shield. “Stay back, mortal. You wouldn’t want to interrupt the transfer midway. It would trap her in this limbo indefinitely.” Steve freezes, but his face is etched with hatred.

Natasha groans again, eyelids fluttering shut against the expression on Steve’s face despite her determination to hide her suffering from Loki. It feels like there’s some kind of creature burrowing into her guts, like thorny vines wrapping around her very bones. She presses herself tighter into Clint, like she can climb inside his skin and away from the agony. Clint runs a still shaking hand over her hair and back. “It’s okay, Nat. It’s fine. It’s not…it’s not as bad as Berlin, right?”

“Nothing’s as bad as Berlin,” she slurs, no longer able to raise her head from his shoulder.

There’s a clank of armour behind her. “She okay?”

Natasha bites clean through her lip, muffling the scream in her throat as best as she can.

“Keep eyes on Loki.” Clint raps out the instruction, a sure sign that he’s rattled. “He can’t- he can’t be allowed to leave her like this.”

There is a familiar light boot scuff, and a familiar low laugh. “I wouldn’t leave her, Little One. I want to watch the infamous Black Widow prove that she’s as weak as any other woman.”

Natasha shudders again, the pain too great to allow for feeling insulted, and Clint’s arms tighten. With Loki’s attention on her, the pain feels like it’s racheting up by several notches, pressing behind her eyeballs as well as her stomach and skin now, but she’s determined not to give Loki the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurts. “Bastard,” Clint hisses at him.

Loki just laughs again, cruelty tinging the soft sound. “I find your bravery the most remarkable, Little Bird. I can disappear from here and leave your paramour trapped in this agony, and yet still you dare insult me.”

Clint’s teeth grind together audibly, but he says nothing. Natasha hates that Loki has managed to silence Clint’s trademark smart mouth.

“And your stupidity is endearing.”

A long fingered pale hand comes into Natasha’s view, resting on Clint’s cheek. He twitches, but with most of Natasha’s weight in his arms, he can’t move away.

“I never needed a bond, nor your _consent_.”

Clint makes a sound and jerks backwards as best as he can, almost pulling Natasha off her feet and wrenching a cry out of her. Steve’s shield soars up, a red, blue and white blur out of the corner of Natasha’s eye, too high to do any damage, but perfectly positioned for Tony to ricochet a blast of his repulsors off of it and safely up and over Clint and Natasha to strike Loki in the chest. The god tumbles back with a furious exclamation, and Thor lands on the roof top behind him, face flushed in anger.

He wraps an arm around Loki’s waist, the one holding Mjolnir falling on his shoulder. “Loki, my brother. This time, you will pay for your crimes.”

It’s the last Natasha sees before unconsciousness mercifully reaches up and swallows her.


	15. Clint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Avengers have finally come together, Tony and Steve are in the process of living happily ever after, and they’re finally the family that the Avengers have not-so-secretly spent their lives longing for. It’s perfect, right? Except that Loki’s back, and Clint is acting really strangely…Sixth part of First Impressions and Second Chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Disclaimer: Not mine unfortunately, though considering what I put them through, probably for the best.  
> Warning/Spoilers: ANGST, hurt Clint (just for a change), mindfuckery (again, sorry), swearing, off screen and non-graphic torture, manipulation. On a more serious note, though I don’t wish to spoiler anything but I should probably note that those with serious triggers involving suicidal thoughts and mindcontrol may want to be careful.  
> Genre: angst, hurt/comfort, gen (background), slash (background), Avengers family and protective Avengers  
> Beta: kerravon  
> A/N: The chapter title of each chapter will tell you who the POV is as, like in Cuts & Bruises, this has a rotating POV and the flashback chapters are in past tense – I didn’t want a whole chapter in italics, but did want some visual cue.

**Friends are the Family you Choose for Yourself**

 

Even once the battle is done - with Loki snarking uselessly from behind Hulk-proof sheets of whatever that stuff is, and Phil coldly ignoring him while he takes the others’ reports, calls into HQ, and organises whatever relief and repair services need to be coordinated - Clint refuses to take Natasha to medical. He knows from long experience that SHIELD can’t help with Asgardian magic fucked-uppery. Conventional earth doctors are not who Natasha needs right now. Instead, he lifts her bridal style and heads towards the stairs, trusting that Tony and the others won’t deny Natasha entry to the tower, even though they’d have every right to kick _him_ to the curb. A few days – a few hours – ago, that had even been what he wanted. Well, sort of.

None of them say anything, and it is out of deference to them, and out of gratitude that they hadn’t forced him to stay outside where he wouldn’t have known if Tasha was okay for _days_ , that he takes her to the common area instead of presuming that he will be allowed to take an injured team member out of Steve’s sight. He doesn’t deserve that trust anymore and he knows it. The cushions on the sofa are warm, and he barely has Tasha comfortably positioned, her head in his lap and fingers carding her hair like he’s rarely permitted to do when she’s conscious, when Bruce is handing him one of the warm fluffy blankets from movie night to spread over her. Clint leans into the worn backrest of the sofa and tries to look non-threatening.

“Thor, I’d like to speak to your mom, if that’s okay?” He would be willing to beg any way Thor wanted him to for the favour, but again, he’s betting that they won’t deny Natasha.

“I can return to Asgard upon the instant,” Thor rumbles, his eyes cut across the room to Phil, whose mouth is still a compressed angry line and whose eyes are rooted on Tasha as though looking at Clint might cause him actual pain. “Am I permitted to take my brother?”

“Asgard has proven they can’t hold your brother, Thor,” Steve says quietly.

“Or that they aren’t interested enough to try!” Tony adds.

Thor sighs. “Loki is wily. Ever he has found it easy to sway others to his thinking, and he has more tricks and abilities than even I, who know him best could list, but he is a Prince. It is beneath Asgard to keep him in a hovel designed for common criminals. Even so-”

“Even so, he keeps _fucking with my planet and my friends_ ,” Tony snarls, “and I honestly don’t know which one of those things pisses me off more.”

Thor makes a warning sound and Steve holds up a hand placatingly. “I understand that he’s your brother, Thor, but you must see that Tony has a point. This is the dozenth time that he’s targeted us specifically, and we’ve always won so far, but he’s _powerful_. There may come a day when-” he meets Tony’s eyes briefly.

Clint feels hot bile jump into his throat, burning, and he can almost feel the rubbery sensation of arteries rent apart by his hands, and a gapingly, conspicuously empty, hole in Tony’s chest.

“And there’s significant collateral damage when Loki’s involved,” Bruce says, saving them from having to allude to that nightmare again. He’s wearing an overlarge sweatshirt – Steve’s, Clint identifies – and plucking uneasily at the rolled-up sleeves. His bent head gives Clint a chance to check him quickly for injuries without risking the disgust in eyes that had turned green when Clint had needled him about how effective a weapon he was.

“Earth lacks the ability to hold Loki if he does not wish to be held,” Thor disagrees.

Tony snorts. “Well, we can’t do any _worse_.”

A cracked laugh grates out of Clint. “He’s obsessed with me. I can share Loki’s cell. That’ll give him a reason to stay.”

Five pairs of eyes swing to stare at him. “We are not going to offer you up to Loki like a sacrificial virgin,” Phil says flatly.

Clint gives a hollow smile. Natasha is still shuddering against him. He can feel the paper thinness of her skin, every one of her bones. He’s never thought of her as fragile before; Natasha is the wall he puts his back to. Plus, she’d kick his ass if he thought of her that way, but the tremors running through her are so violent he wonders if she might fly apart. “Not a virgin, sir. And not that this isn’t important but-”

Thor’s gaze drops to Natasha and he crosses the room to them, dropping to one knee beside the sofa. His fingers ghost over Natasha’s cheek and he murmurs something softly in a language that Clint doesn’t understand. Natasha, for the first time since Loki put his hand in hers, stops shaking.

Clint closes his eyes in relief. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “Is she-?”

“She is asleep,” Thor grimaces, “inducing deeper rest in the already slumbering is the limit of my magical aptitude.”

“Thank you,” Clint says again.

Thor shrugs, his eyes glued on Natasha. “She needs more healing than I am capable of,” he says softly, “I will go to my mother.” He stands and surveys the room, looking between Steve and Phil and, inexplicably, at Natasha, before finally saying softly, “Loki may as well remain here for the moment instead of being permitted to slow my journey. Consider your arguments for keeping him well, Son of Coul. Asgard will wish to ransom him and you must be prepared if you hope to refuse their might.” He sweeps out without saying anything further.

Clint forces himself to look around the room. No one will meet his eyes and he drops them back to his fingers in Natasha’s hair. More than anything else, seeing the way the Avengers are all not looking at him, wary hurt in their eyes, makes it obvious how much damage Clint has done, how much pain he’s caused them. He tries to remind himself that it had been necessary, but with Loki vanquished and no one in his head but him, it’s hard to convince himself of that. He hadn’t expected to ever be in this situation again. Loki had made it clear that when he finally got bored of toying with him and took Clint for his own that he intended to break him in every way it was possible to make a man break. Clint hadn’t planned to make it easy for him…but he hadn’t doubted him either. He knows exactly how weak Loki makes him.

He forces himself to look back at Phil, who senses the gaze and after a moment, condescends to meet his eyes, even if the hard furious anger does make Clint quail. “I guess you want to debrief, sir.”

For an instant a flicker of Phil’s usual compassion softens his eyes. “Wouldn’t you like privacy for that, Agent?”

The impersonal address cuts into him and he has to force himself to hold still, to hold Phil’s gaze. He’s right. Phil’s _always_ right. But just because Clint isn’t a huge superbrain like Tony or Bruce, or even just intelligent like Phil and Tash; even though he’s just a high school dropout that happens to have pretty good aim, he isn’t stupid. He knows that having Loki _in his head_ , passing judgement on his every action, his every fleeting thought, for months, is not good. At best, he’s irreparably broken, damaged. If he’s lucky – and if Fury’s feeling merciful – he’ll get a _why we no longer require your services_ letter and a large enough severance to change his name and go on making a difference anonymously. More likely, it makes him a double agent. He’d done his _best_ , but it’s stupid to assume Loki hadn’t been able to take something he could use. SHIELD doesn’t look kindly on that, he knows exactly how leaks are plugged. Plugged being the operative word. Maybe they really will just give him to Loki. If it makes him leave earth alone, it’s the least Clint can do.

Not to mention what he owes the others.

In lieu of being able to tell them, he’d tried to protect them any way he could. He’d tried to make sure they weren’t near enough to be caught in the blast radius when Loki eventually took control of him fully. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t hurt them unforgivably. He’d known what he was doing; he’d deliberately gone for the unforgivable. It had been calculated, the only means of protection at his disposal.

He just hadn’t expected to survive it, or to be himself enough to care if he did.

In the aftermath of battle, adrenaline still running high, old habits got him in the door. If he leaves with Phil, SHIELD will be able to get rid of him quickly and quietly and he’ll never know if Loki upheld his promise. He’ll be executed without ever knowing if she was okay, without knowing if she understood that he had _tried_ or if all he will be to Tasha was one more person who had betrayed her and used her for his own ends.

Clint shakes his head slightly. “No. I- They deserve to know.” He isn’t worthy enough to even ask their forgiveness, and he knows he’ll never deserve it, but he can at least do them the courtesy of explaining why. He knows from bitter experience that it’s all too often not the betrayal that kept one awake into the small hours of the night, but the wondering what you had done to deserve it. The least he can give them is a reason.

Phil doesn’t argue. Despite his reputation, Phil has always known when to break protocol. Instead, he settles in a chair. “Alright then, Barton,” and despite the feeling of Natasha, unmoving in his arms, and the still faces of his friends all staring at him, the familiar address does soothe him. “Start at the beginning. Tell me what happened.”

Clint keeps looking at him, not daring to check the others' expressions as they follow Phil’s lead, settling into the second sofa. It’s not really big enough for the three of them. “When…ah. The beginning. The…you remember the attack on the helicarrier? My hearing?”

Phil simply nods once, and is polite enough not to mention Clint stammering like a junior after his first firefight.

“Loki…Loki took us. The magical mystery tour.”

“The one you don’t remember,” Phil says mercilessly.

“Yeah. Except. I do. Remember, I mean.”

Phil nods again. Clint barely suppresses the wry smile. Phil always knew he was lying, and now he’s been proven right. He’ll be justified in having the mother of all I-told-you-so moments later.

“So where did Loki take you?”

The question takes Clint by surprise and he whips his head around. Tony is watching him from between – almost on top of – Steve and Bruce. He’s clinging tightly to one of Steve’s hands, but his eyes are dark and fixed solely on Clint. Clint darts a quick look at Steve, who’s taken the role of Tony-protector seriously and won’t let Clint speak if he thinks Tony will be too badly hurt by it, before opening his mouth to answer. “It was just a room.”

“What?”

“A room. Smaller than this one. I was…well, you know. Loki made me watch while he fucked with you; let me see past the illusion. I knew-” he changes tack. “He was there the whole time. Watching. I couldn’t warn you. Couldn’t even keep my eyes on him if you held me the wrong way.”

Tony looks horrified. “Jesus, Clint.”

He sounds so honestly sympathetic without being pitying, that Clint has to duck his head before they all see the tears in his eyes. Tony doesn’t need to act for him, he deserves their contempt. “He…uh. I was there first. In the room. It was just me and Loki, and before he _changed_ me, I argued with him. I fought.”

“Of course you did,” Steve says stoutly, “you’re an Avenger.”

Clint’s stomach lurches. Steve still doesn’t understand. He’s broken and useless and needs to be put down and he’s going to have to watch that realisation creep across Steve’s face.

It’s Bruce that hits on the most important question. “What did you fight about?”

“My time as his thrall,” Clint answers promptly. “He wanted me to be 'his' again. He wanted me to tell him how much I missed his control.”

Steve hisses, and the quick glance at the Avengers Clint permits himself in order to take his eyes off of Phil’s horrified expression tells him that Bruce looks sickened, and more than a little green.

“And like an idiot, I fought with him,” he laughs and shakes his head. “I’m such a moron. I should’ve just done what he wanted. It’s not like a few words could have hurt anyone.” Instantly he wants to recall his comment. All he’s done for _weeks_ is gut the people he cares most about with words. He looks quickly back down at Natasha and continues. “I bit him, and Loki, he…” he pauses, braced, half waiting for the shooting agony that has incapacitated him, sickened him, made him incapable of speech or even thought, every time he has thought of telling this story, thought even of writing it down. It doesn’t come. “He dipped his hand in the blood and wiped it on my face. He said I was _blood-bound_ to him, that he could call on me whenever he wanted. He said he could always find me, even if I ran.”

“And then what?” Phil asks when the silence stretches too long.

Clint resumes carding his fingers in Natasha’s hair. “Then there was the dickbag team-bonding, and about…six weeks, I guess, where I just thought he’d been faking. I mean, he’s the god of lies, right? I thought he’d just been trying to, y’know, freak me out.” He takes a second to compose himself. “And then, he came back.”

“I remember that,” Phil says quietly. “He cornered you, didn’t he?”

Clint nods. “He came up to my perch, wrapped us in a forcefield and told me he was going to take what was his. I told him he could try, drew an arrow and he…he laughed. He told me I wouldn’t have a choice and he was in no hurry and would prove that to me. He touched me,” Clint draws his free hand over his cheek in a quick gesture, feeling again the slick, icy touch of the demi-god’s too-cold fingers. “I started hearing him after that. In my head. I uh,” Clint gives a self-conscious laugh, “I even spoke to Doctor Anderson about it. I thought I was imagining things. She said it was internalised guilt.”

“You should have said something, Clint,” Steve says, gentle but stern. Clint half smiles. He’s missed that tone so _much_. It’s been so long since he’s deserved the ' _this is for your own good'_ voice.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know. But at that point I thought I was just hiding my crazy, and we _all_ do that. Anyway, he started talking…more.”

“What did he say?” Phil asks.

Clint flinches; trust Phil to go straight for the jugular. “Just…” his voice shakes, “he started talking about the bond, saying that now he was back on Midgard he was near enough to activate it.”

“You should have told one of us,” Steve says again, and there’s something harder to his voice now, a furious undertone.

Clint clenches the hand not in Natasha’s hair. His failure to speak when he had the chance is the reason Tasha is lying unconscious and only not shaking with pain because of Thor’s magic. “I tried,” he says lowly, to Phil’s knees. “When I realised it was really him, I _tried_. He…I couldn’t talk about it. No matter what I tried I couldn’t…Loki thought it was hilarious,” he admits. No one moves; he can’t even hear them breathing. “He thought listening to me fight to tell you was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.”

There’s the sound of material on leather as someone shifts and then Tony says, voice free of censure, “And he started controlling you. He started using you to hurt us.”

Clint swallows. It would be so _easy_ to agree, so easy to let them think it had been Loki who had shaped those vicious words. But his only hope of mercy from SHIELD is to prove how hard and how long he had fought and he’d rather be friendless and alone than thought a traitor again. He shakes his head. “I couldn’t tell you he was there, that he was watching you behind my eyes, always. And I couldn’t say anything. He told me the longer the bond was active the stronger it would become, the more he would be able to make me do. He told me what he was going to make me do to all of you. Showed me in vivid techinicolour actually.”

“So you decided you had to leave,” Phil interjects when it becomes obvious he can’t go on.

Clint nods. “I had to leave. He would have been able to control me like…like before, eventually.” He forces his gaze up to Phil’s once more. “He would have been able to get into all my thoughts and memories again. There’s no such thing as classified when you’re not alone in your own head, sir. I needed…I needed to be…I needed to make sure none of you would come after me, and that you wouldn’t welcome me back with open arms, that you’d watch me. It was the only thing I could do.” He can feel his eyes burning and _oh god, he’s going to cry_. He tucks his chin into his chest to hide it. “I’m sorry. I know the things I said were unforgivable, and I’m not asking for your forgiveness but…I never wanted to hurt any of you.”

“You don’t have to apologise for anything,” Bruce says instantly. “You were trying to protect us. We understand. We wish you hadn’t been put in that situation, but we understand.”

Clint wants _so much_ to believe him, to believe he still has a family, a home. “I called you a monster, a green freak. I told you the army _owned_ you and that you weren’t doing your duty to your country by hiding behind Stark. I said that your obsession with pretending to be a hero was putting _kids_ at risk from the Hulk.”

Tony makes a sound and Bruce puts a hand on his arm without looking. “And all those things hurt.” He pauses. “Do you believe them?”

Clint shakes his head violently. “No! No! But that still doesn’t-”

“Of course it changes things. You wanted me to be angry enough to let you go so I wouldn’t be near enough for Loki to be able to use me as his blunt weapon.”

“I-” he shouldn’t take the absolution offered, but he’s always been weak. “Okay. But…that’s you. Ever-calm doctor Banner.” He glances slightly at Steve, “You’re still mad,” and at Phil, “and you.”

“I’m not-” Phil gives a subvocal snarl and straightens in his chair. “I’m mad because you were going to kill yourself. You were going to kill yourself and you were going to make me _responsible_ for it.”

“And _I’m_ mad because Loki went after you _again_ ,” Steve adds.

“Yeah, what is his obsession with me?”

“It’s your ass,” Tony quips, but he still looks troubled.

“What?” demands Bruce.

“This bloodbond thingamy-jiggy. It isn’t gone. Loki just transferred it. Clint’s bonded to Natasha instead, that’s all. Does that mean he’s going to start hearing her in his head? Because that’s enough to freak anyone out. No offense.”

Clint raises an eyebrow. “None taken.”

“Perhaps I can help?” inquires a familiar figure from the door.

Clint flinches violently, and is only slightly gratified by the fact that Phil does the same. Frigga stands in the doorway. Clint hasn’t seen her since she checked him over when the others were still searching for what was wrong with him, but she looks exactly the same, and as unearthly as ever.

It’s Phil who stands to offer a greeting and Thor peels himself away from his mother’s side to sit on the arm of the sofa next to Clint and drape an arm over his shoulders. Clint flinches again, but Thor doesn’t move away from him, merely holds him tighter. He’s unable to keep himself from leaning into Thor’s warmth. It’s been weeks since he was touched like that, casual and affectionate. It’s only because they have an audience that he doesn’t just bury into Thor and start purring. He straightens when Frigga crosses the room and stops in front of him.

She drops to one knee, putting them at eye level, and Clint feels like he’s a child so much smaller than she. He isn’t sure if he should be offended by that, but before he can decide she speaks.

“I must apologise, Agent Barton, for failing to find the trace that my son must have left on your mind.”

Her hand cups his face, fingers in his hair much as his are in Natasha’s. He has no true memory of his own mother, but something in the gesture makes him feel very young and cared for. He knows his face is revealing his turmoil, the confusion of a child who has just discovered his parents aren’t omniscient. His voice is very young as he asks, “How could you miss that?” He had been so _relieved_ when they had sent for Frigga, sure she would be able to help him.   Even Loki had stopped laughing and chattering in his head, tensely silent instead. Only to renew his maniacal giggling a thousandfold when the gentle mental probe had found nothing.

She shakes her head. “Loki has vilely used you before today, such a thing leaves…scars, a fingerprint, a trace I expected to be there and thought nothing of. Besides, even amongst Midgardians, blood-bonds are hardly unusual. A blood-bond is the most fundamental of magic. Bonds such as this tie everyone, Midgardian or Aesir, brother to brother, father to son. It is what binds groups of shield brothers, those who have fought and bled alongside one another, saving one another’s life and giving their own blood in payment, claiming a fellow warrior as belonging with blood willingly spilled. Your whole life is made of thousands of these bonds, Clint Barton. I was unable to discern Loki’s amongst so many.”

“But-” Clint struggles to understand. “Then how could he use the bond to talk to me?”

“Any tie between men is simply a…a road. Once that tie was there, Loki was able to use it as he would any path.”

“And the silencing spell?”

“Hidden beneath your own defences,” Frigga answers in a sigh, “where I did not wish to pry.”

Clint nods. He feels drained and tired. He has no sooner had the thought than the hand on his cheek strokes gently, cool fingers brushing his face.

“Poor child,” she says softly. “My boy has done you a great wrong.”

Clint has no wish to talk about it any longer. “Can you check Tasha, please?” he asks instead. “Can you make sure that I don’t have an all access path into her head?”

Frigga looks at Natasha’s sleeping form. “She is your warrior companion.”

“Yes.”

“Then of course she is blood-bound to you, as you are to her, and as you were long before this day.”

“We are concerned the bond may have been strengthened unnaturally, Mother. Loki’s spell caused her great pain.”

Frigga’s hand leaves Clint’s face to brush Thor’s knee and then to land on Natasha’s forehead. Despite himself, Clint tenses. Frigga spares him a smile. “I will not let your beloved come to harm,” she promises. A soft purple glow begins to emanate from her hand where it touches Natasha’s face and a small puckered frown creases Frigga’s forehead. There is silence, such deep silence Clint can hear his heart beating. Even Tony is silent for the moment it takes her to look into Natasha’s mind. “I see nothing,” she says breaking the connection, “though the bond between you is stronger and more shining than any of the others in her mind.”

“And there’s nothing else?” Clint presses. “Not like there was with me?”

“I see nothing, though I would not delve into the private recesses of her mind without far greater cause. If such a reason should present itself, I will come at your call.”

“But the pain?”

“Such things can happen with any magical transfer, particularly when the castor does not trouble to be careful.”

“She’s okay then? She won’t…the bond isn’t even new?”

Frigga smiles at him. “Is this the first time she has spilled blood for you?”

Clint thinks of all the times Natasha has bled at his side, or while rescuing him, or giving him what he needs, or even on the sparring mat showing him a new move or learning one.

“It’s not even the first time _this week_!” Tony interjects.

Steve elbows him. “It’s not polite to interrupt.”

“Yeah, Stark.” Clint manages a passable impression of his usual sarcasm. “I was having a moment.”

“Oh, please. You’re bound to her, she’s bound to you. It’s all very romantic and mystical. It’s literally nothing you didn’t know half an hour ago.”

Clint turns back to Frigga, the import of Tony’s words registering on him. “She’s bound to me too?”

“A bond such as this goes both ways. Your bond to Loki went both ways too, had you but known it.”

Phil clears his throat, which saves Clint from explaining to that too-kind face that he had figured it out, just a little too late. “When will she wake up?” he asks, ever practical.

“She is tired. She has been used as a conduit for sorcery which is draining on a mortal body. She will sleep until morning and need rest after that, but it will seem as no more than a brief ailment. She will be well in three days.”

“Great. The Black Widow on bed rest for three days. That’ll be fun.”

Conspicuously no one argues, and eventually it’s Steve who says, with more obligation in his tone than conviction, “She’s not that bad.”

“She kind of is,” Clint objects.

“I’ll just stay out of everyone’s way, so we don’t have an accidental incident while she’s recovering,” Bruce mutters to his knees.

“And I’ve got a tower to fix. A Hulk fell on it.”

“The Director will need the reports of the battle.”

“I wish for my mother to meet my fair Jane while she is on Midgard.”

Clint looks unimpressed by the excuses. “And you?” he asks Phil.

“Your girlfriend, your problem,” Phil says without a trace of sympathy. “I told you that when even starting a relationship didn’t stop the pair of you from haunting my office complaining about the other, and I see no reason to change a system that’s worked for ten years.”

Clint sighs. “I guess I deserve this?”

There isn’t a chorus of agreements, but no one disagrees either. Before it can become awkward, Frigga rises and speaks again. “The bonds between all of you are strong. I feel safer leaving my son in your keeping now that I have seen the depths of your devotion to one another.”

Thor pinks a little. “Mother!” he objects. “I am not a child to need safeguarding.”

Clint clenches his lips to keep from laughing. Tony has no such compunctions.

“You will always be my child, Thor, no matter how strong and mighty you may grow to be. Now, if you wish me to meet your Jane we must leave.”

When they are gone, Phil blows air out in a noise that’s not quite a sigh. “Do you think I can reclaim the rest of my evening without more drama if I leave you alone for as long as it takes to get some food and sleep?” he asks, looking beadily over them.

Steve shifts on the sofa and his eyes are on the ground as he mutters, “Actually, sir. There’s a problem with Agent Hill that we’d like to discuss with you.”


End file.
